


A Valentine’s Day Miracle

by The Wicked Symphony (SymphonyWizard)



Series: Of Shields and Widow’s Bites [8]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angry Avengers, Comatose, F/M, Hurt Steve Rogers, Premature Birth, Steve Needs a Hug, The Avengers are pissed, Tony Is a Good Bro, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Valentine's Day Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-05
Updated: 2019-04-29
Packaged: 2019-10-22 20:59:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 10
Words: 24,395
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17669975
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SymphonyWizard/pseuds/The%20Wicked%20Symphony
Summary: “How are you feeling, buddy?”The man finally turns to meet his eyes.  “My wife is in a coma with a bullet wound in her chest, my son is in an incubator, and he has no name.  Nat and I were supposed to name him together.  I don’t even know when or if Nat will wake up from her coma.  I’ll let you do the math.”  He turns away without another word and walks away.Tony can hear him crying.  Eventually, he turns back to the baby in the incubator.  He smiles weakly. For some reason, the thought of that kid growing up without a mother reminds him of how he felt after losing his own mother.  He was in college when it happened, but it still hurt like hell.  “Your mommy will come out of her coma, kid,” he swears.  “I promise you.”





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Faith2nyc](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Faith2nyc/gifts), [damasc](https://archiveofourown.org/users/damasc/gifts), [Mustang_Girl16](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mustang_Girl16/gifts), [AutonomicRogue](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AutonomicRogue/gifts).



> There are arcs that come before this, such as Steve and Nat's wedding, covering my version of AoU, the Avenger discovering their relationship, etc. but I wanted to get this written, or at least get it started, in time for Valentine's Day.

It’s quiet.  It’s deadly quiet.  The gym which always has at least one or two people in it at most given times is empty, its equipment gathering dust.  The place is large enough that finding a place for some quiet time isn’t too difficult, but it’s never been _this_ quiet.  Once or twice, someone tries to break the silence, but it’s always awkward.  Even Vision, that android with Jarvis’ voice, seems to understand uncomfortably silences. 

The place is so quiet that the rustling of a newspaper or someone turning a page in their book sounds like a gunshot.  Making a health drink using one of the blenders in the kitchen sounds similar to the chaos they have experienced in New York and Sokovia.  Even at a quiet volume, the television set in the living room sounds way too loud.  A person’s footsteps can be heard even if they aren’t wearing shoes. 

The Avengers complex is holding its breath.  No one can bring themselves to break the silence.  No words of comfort seem to escape anyone’s lips.  Whatever plans everyone might have had for the weekend seem to have all been forgotten. 

Tony was planning on taking Pepper Potts out for a lovely Valentine’s Day dinner in Manhattan.  Looking back, he might not have sounded as apologetic as he should have for telling her that he wouldn’t be able to make it, but once he explained the situation, she was still upset but for the same reason that everyone else is. 

One of their own lies in a hospital bed in the complex’s elaborate hospital ward.  In fact, _two_ of their own are in the hospital ward.  The Avengers welcomed a new member to their family.  On Valentine’s Day, they welcomed a baby into the world…a week before he was due.  It should have been cause for celebration—it is a cause for celebration—but everyone is worried not only for his life, but all that of his mother. 

Tony still doesn’t know what baffles him more—the fact that the Cap and Romanov were a thing, having been dating for months right under everyone’s nose, or the fact that for the last nine months, she had been carrying the Cap’s child.  No one thought she could get pregnant to begin with, but it would seem the Cap’s serum won out against Romanov’s enhanced immune system.  Tony is pretty sure he can still feel the punch he received from Barton for his crude humor on the matter.

More than anything though, despite his history with publicity stunts, he didn’t want the Cap’s impending fatherhood reaching the public.  He offered up one of his lesser known properties for Romanov to discreetly come to term.  As she reached eight months, though, she was brought back to the complex in preparation for her due date.  One thing that Tony had a more difficult time hiding was the amount of maternity ward equipment being added to the hospital ward of the complex.  Even harder was finding a maternity doctor and labor and deliver nurse they trusted.  They even wrote up a non-disclosure agreement to sign. 

In short terms, the agreement stated that they would be sued for every penny they owned if they revealed anything.  A bit harsh, but Tony doesn’t want the world knowing about the son of Captain America and Black Widow if he can help it.  He has some of the best lawyers under his payroll, but he doesn’t see how well they can hide a child’s heritage.  If they want to bend the law, they would have to fabricate the kid’s parentage. 

Either way, there would be a lot of unwanted media coverage before it died down to just conspiracy theories thrown around on tabloids and social media. 

Tony sits in his favorite chair in the living room, staring down at his untouched box of Godiva chocolates Pepper gave him for Valentine’s Day.  He maintains a strict diet, but he indulges himself once in a while.  But if he gets breakouts from these chocolates, he threatened to sue Pepper. 

She coolly replied, “Bite me, Stark.”

He does appreciate that she is one of the few who can see his deadpan humor.  In fact, seeing how happy Cap and Romanov have been together, it’s made him want to tie the knot with Pepper.  He’s visited just about every shop in New York looking for a ring that was just right.  Pepper doesn’t wear gaudy jewelry, and he doesn’t want her to complain about a ring that is “more him, instead of her.” 

He’s not the only one in the living room.  Sam and Rhodey are quietly playing a game of chess, the only sound being the pieces as they move them across the board.  Tony hasn’t even looked up to see which of them might be winning.  They have played chess before, so he knows the both of them are quite adept at the game.  What he can guess is that neither of them are truly concerned with beating the other.  They are just trying to fill the time. 

Wanda is reading a book, having taken a break from practicing her powers.  Tony has to hand it to the Cap.  Under his tutelage, the girl seems more in control of her abilities.  He would also admit that the Cap probably has better leadership skills than he does.

Tony might be a financier of the Avengers, having helped bring them together even, but his experience with true leadership greatly pales in comparison to the Cap.  Lately, he’s even been questioning his role as a superhero.  More than once in his life now, he has had to look back on what his creations have wrought.  He has seen his creations in the hands of terrorists.  Together with Banner, he created Ultron.  Looking back, Tony has quite forgotten what his original intent for Ultron has been. 

All he knows is what a big mistake it turned out to be.  Once again, he had to go and clean up a mess he helped create. 

He’s not alone with his demons, he knows that.  As recently as a few days ago, he’s seen the Cap nearly cross a line that no one thought he could have crossed.  Lord knows he had plenty of incentive, and his anger was mirrored by all the Avengers, but still he pulled back.

Tony isn’t sure if it was truly his dark side, but he now knows for a fact that even Captain America is capable of cutting it too close to the edge.

He can’t take it anymore.  “I’m going to go see the Cap,” he announces, rising to his feet.  “Anyone wants a chocolate, feel free.  I’m probably not going to eat them.”

He leaves without another word.  He walks through the empty complex.  He had Friday decorate the various screens with Valentine’s Day fluff, but now even he finds it hard to really look at.  It’s a beautiful day out with the sun shining and warmth breaking through the late winter air, but no one is any mood for indulging in it.  It just feels like a harsh irony to the tension felt throughout the place. 

Eventually, he reaches the hospital ward.  Soon, he even sees the Cap.  As he nears him, Tony slows his approach.  He doesn’t even speak a word as he comes to stand next to the taller man. 

Steve stands with his arms folded across his chest, his chin propped on his thumb.  There are deep bags under his eyes and a noticeable scruff covers his face and neck.  His hair looks like he hasn’t bothered to put a comb through it in days.  The only thing about him that looks clean is his clothes which consist of dark, close-fitting jeans and a T-shirt.  His eyes are bloodshot. 

Tony follows his gaze.  He doesn’t know what to say as his eyes land on the baby within the incubator.  Hooked up to all that equipment, the tiny creature with a patch of red hair on his head feels like a miracle.  At least, he seems to make Tony want to believe in miracles. He was hoping it wouldn’t be needed, but he added the makeshift N.I.C.U. just in case.  Better safe than sorry, right?

“How is he?” he finally asks. 

It takes a long time for the Cap to answer.  “The doctor says that he can come out tomorrow, saying that he’s never seen a baby pull through so fast.”

“Well, he does have both his parents to thank for that,” Tony throws in before he can stop himself.  Thankfully, the Cap laughs lightly.  “How are you feeling, buddy?”

The man finally turns to meet his eyes.  “My wife is in a coma with a bullet wound in her chest, my son is in an incubator, and he has no name.  Nat and I were supposed to name him together.  I don’t even know when or if Nat will wake up from her coma.  I’ll let you do the math.”  He turns away without another word and walks away. 

Tony can hear him crying.  Eventually, he turns back to the baby in the incubator.  He smiles weakly. For some reason, the thought of that kid growing up without a mother reminds him of how he felt after losing his own mother.  He was in college when it happened, but it still hurt like hell.  “Your mommy will come out of her coma, kid,” he swears.  “I promise you.”


	2. Chapter One

_Seven days ago_

 

Natasha opened her eyes with a groan.  She wanted to take a much needed afternoon nap, but once again, her bladder had gotten the better of her.

“And back to the bathroom we go,” she muttered.  She swung her legs off the coach and slipped her feet into her slippers.  As her third trimester started to come into full swing, much of her footwear had become too tight.  Her slippers seemed to be the only thing that fit her anymore.  With effort, she managed to rise to her feet. 

With a sigh, she waddled to the nearest bathroom.  Once she reached it, she closed the door behind her.  After relieving herself for the—twentieth?—time today, she stood back up and stopped to observe herself in the mirror.  She was thirty-nine weeks pregnant and was more than ready for that due date.  If only it could come sooner.

Once she was done in the bathroom, she headed back out.  She glanced around the living room.  The couch she was napping on sat in front of a large television set.  When she and her husband were decorating their private rooms in the Avengers complex, they opted not to have quite as much of Stark’s high-tech features.  None of their rooms even have holograph projectors.  Her husband is a bit of an old soul and he wanted to decorate their rooms, at least partially, how he would have in his youth.

There was a semicircle of overstuffed couches.  Her husband wasn’t a fan of leather couches and neither was she really.  The velvety sofas are very comfortable.  If they don’t make it to the bed, their couch is a very good substitute. 

Their living room had a large window on one side.  It offered a beautiful view of the Hudson and the wilderness surrounding it.  Some days, she could spend hours just gazing out that window.  She has watched her husband sketch the Hudson several times.  The world knows her husband as Captain America, but one of her favorite things about him is his skills as an artist. 

A bookshelf on the opposite side of the television had a few sketchbooks filled to the brim with his drawings.  For a minute, she considered selecting one of those sketchbooks and flipping through it.  It’s not something she did very often.  Not that she disliked his drawings, nor that it’s an invasion of his privacy, she simply considered his art to be very special.  It’s a special thing that she liked to savor.  She also liked to wait a while and allow Steve to add a few more drawings.  

Going back to the television set in front of the couches, now that she realized it, it was still on.  She must have fallen asleep watching something.  She was binge-watching _Friends_.  Whatever episode she was on when she fell asleep, she can’t remember.  She can’t even remember if it began with a “The One With” or “The One Where”. 

Sometimes she thinks that the original Avengers are like the cast of _Friends_ —a ragtag, mismatched group of six friends.  They weren’t all even friends yet.  At the time of the Chitauri invasion, they were just a group of people brought together due to their skills.  She was doing a routine espionage mission and suddenly she got that call saying her best friend had been compromised.  Then she was ordered to go recruit Bruce Banner.  Admittedly, she didn’t give him much reason to trust her. 

Her boss recruited her husband.  Some days she really hated Nick Fury for thrusting her husband back into action when he was already trying to adjust to the fact that he was literally a man out of time.  Although he is a pro at hiding it, she had seen his break down before.  She had seen just how much he was still affected by a war that happened over seventy years ago. 

After New York, she was assigned to him since Clint was benched due to what he experienced.  She was very annoyed being put on what she called “babysitting duty” at the time, but she grew to like him.  She grew to trust him.  She didn’t always give him a reason to trust her, accepting side missions and not telling him about them, but having earned his trust? 

For a woman like her, what greater blessing is there than earning Steve Rogers’ trust? 

That question has been answered a few times over, in fact.  He has not only given her his trust, he gave her his heart.  Falling in love with him went against everything that was taught to her in the Red Room, but it happened.  They had only officially—though secretly—dated for eight months before he proposed to her.  They got married the following month.  Then in the wake of Ultron, she discovered, much to her eternal shock, that she was pregnant.  She was pregnant!  Considering her enhanced immune system, she and Steve never considered using protection during sex.  Besides, she didn’t want there to be any barriers between them. 

They have had unprotected sex many times.  That one time, though, the one thing that the Red Room supposedly prevented from happening to her happened.  She was going to be a mother.  Even during the battle of Sokovia, when she was barely into her first trimester, her cat suit started feeling uncomfortably tight.  It wasn’t her favorite version of her suit to begin with.  The only real advantage of that version was the enhancements to her Widow’s bites.

The Avengers were public icons whether they all liked it or not.  Natasha wasn’t going to let the public know she was about to be a mother if she could help it.  Looking back, it might have been a bad idea, but the plan was to stage a horrible accident that left her incapacitated for a year.  She got shot.  Repeatedly.  They weren’t going to do anything that harmed the baby, so technically she was only shot once in the shoulder.  The rest were blanks.

It wasn’t the first time she was ever shot, but that one time…she was pissed off.  The baby was fine, but that bullet wound made her really upset.  Until she knew for sure that the baby was okay, she was berating everyone.  The only one who wasn’t afraid of her was her husband.  It takes a lot for her to scare him, but it’s not impossible.  One time she scared him on a Halloween.  She waited for the right moment.  Then she snuck up behind him and screamed:  “Boobs!” grabbing his nipples. 

In retrospect, it’s possible that she embarrassed him more than she frightened him.  Either way, it’s just so much fun!  She would die a happy woman if every day could be spent making Steve blush.     

She was brought out of her thoughts by a small kick in her womb.  After regaining her stance a bit, she glanced down at her baby bump with a raised eyebrow.  “ _Good heavens, boy_!” she exclaimed in Russian.  “ _You keep kicking like that and you’ll end up fighting like your father.  You and I both know who the better fighter is_ ,” she added with a whisper.

As if the unborn baby heard her, she felt another kick. 

“ _I’m very excited to have you in my arms instead of my belly, my son_ ,” she whispered tenderly.  Her son.  God, those words sounded so…delicious on her lips.  Her husband didn’t even know the baby’s sex.  In the forties, there were no sonograms.  Steve wanted it to be a surprise. 

Natasha, however, could not wait.  Cleverly scheduling it for a time when Steve was away on mission, she got her sonogram.  She didn’t know how she would feel, boy or girl, but knowing she was carrying a son brought tears to her eyes.  Surely, she would have been just as overjoyed if it was a girl, but it was a boy. 

It was extremely difficult hiding her joy when Steve came back from his mission.  For at least a few hours, she wasn’t stressed out about being on house arrest.  It might not have officially been house arrest—she could leave that house Tony loaned them—but she couldn’t go in public.  She couldn’t even go to the nearest grocery store. 

She grew to hate her unwanted celebrity status.  She was trained to be invisible from the public eye.  Being an Avenger, that sentiment has been compromised to some degree.  She was able to continue her work as an agent of S.H.I.E.L.D., but she had to be cleverer with how she did it.  Her ability to live within the shadows is not compromised at all. 

She has spent eight months living in secret, allowing her baby to grow to term.  It wasn’t easy.  Every time Steve went away on mission, she found herself pacing, sometimes for hours at a time.  She had to keep her cat suit away from herself.  It annoyed the hell out of her that she couldn’t be out there helping the Avengers, fighting alongside her husband.  Instead, she got to know the feeling of worry. 

It’s an emotion that was a bit unfamiliar to her.  She had been worried for Steve’s safety before.  The day the Triskelion and Project Insight helicarriers were destroyed, she was scared to death for him.  After that, she started to worry for him every time he went on missions without her.  It may have been separation anxiety, but it felt nothing like this.  This time she is pregnant; she can’t really do anything to help.

Looking around the empty living room, she would very much have liked to have Steve there with her right now.  That was when she noticed something on the floor.  That was strange.  She swept the floor recently.  She took a few steps closer to get a better look. 

It was a Hershey’s kiss.  She struggled to kneel down and pick it up.  As she did, she looked to the right and saw more.  In fact, there was a trail of them.  They were leading out of the living room.  How had she not noticed it before when she woke up to go to the bathroom? 

She smiled broadly.  “Oh, Steve, you’re such a dork.”  Her excitement growing, she started to follow the trail of Hershey’s kisses.  The trail led her down the hallway, away from the living room.  Every ten Hershey’s kisses or so, there was something else.  The first object in the trail was a box of chocolates, the next was a stuffed bear holding a heart that said “I love you” in Russian, finally the final object looked like a jewelry case.  Her humor disappeared.  She knelt down to pick it up. 

She opened it to reveal a locket.  “Oh, Steve…” she whispered as she delicately took the priceless object out of the case.  She opened it.  Inside there was space to put a small photograph.  She smiles softly.  Sometimes she loves just how old-fashioned her husband is.  She is definitely putting a photograph of her son in there. 

She continued the rest of the way down the trail of kisses.  Eventually, they ended at a door.  She eyed that doorknob suspiciously.  What could be on the other that door?  She’s pregnant; about to pop as Stark so crudely put it, so she can’t exactly defend herself the way she is accustomed to. 

She reached out and opened the door.  What she saw stopped her heart.

Having a baby obviously meant they needed a nursery, so it wasn’t long before they started looking into what they wanted to fill one with.  Neither of them intended for the Avengers complex to be their permanent home, but maybe for a time, while he’s a toddler.  Over time, things have accumulated.  Children’s books, baby toys, a rocking chair, and of course a crib were all among the things they bought. 

Eventually, it all piled up into a big mess. They had all these things, but it was just so disorganized.  The two of them couldn’t even figure out the directions to putting the damn crib together!  That little bit caused a big laugh with their colleagues.  Eventually, Tony offered to put it together for them, or at least talk them through putting it together.

So they had a crib put together, but still everything else was in shambles.  They couldn’t be too careful.  As much as they could, they bought things with cash.  Steve is a terrible liar, but at the same time he has become a pro at blending in.  He can disappear into a crowd if he wants to.  Once or twice, even Natasha had trouble finding him.    

She had no idea how long he might have spent working on this room, but it must have been while he knew she wasn’t looking.  He’s not known for being very subtle.  She knows when he his hiding something.  Did he simply figure out how to not show any of the usual signs that he is hiding something?  Then again, she never did ask him if he was putting together this nursery. 

She didn’t tell him that they are having a son, so it seemed that he made an effort to go for something neutral.  The walls were painted blue.  All the children’s books they bought, both in Russian and English, were set on a bookshelf behind the cushioned rocking chair.  Taking a closer look at the books, Steve had them organized in alphabetical order regardless of the language they are in.  On the opposite side of the room is the crib.  In the crib were a few baby quilts that Laura gave her at her baby shower. 

She might have gotten a little snippy at her baby shower.  She couldn’t fit into the outfits that were given to her and that made her upset.  Also, she hadn’t told anyone if her baby was a boy or girl except for Clint.  He must have leaked that information to Laura, because she gave her a boy-themed baby rattle.  The way she screamed at her friend, poor Laura was nearly drawn to tears.  She did enjoy the present that Pepper gave her.  She gave her an empty photo album. 

She said it was so she could “fill it with memories as her baby grows up.”

Next to the crib was the dresser that Natasha assumed was filled with diapers, and fresh baby bottles, and other stuff.  Above the crib, a mobile hung from the ceiling.  At closer look, Natasha saw the charms on it were spiders and shields.  It was adorable. 

Finally, her eyes landed on the love of her life.  He was looking out the window that offered a lovely view of the river.  He turned around and they locked eyes. 

She didn’t know what to say, looking between him and the whole room.  He did. 

“Happy Valentine’s Day, Natasha,” he said, smiling.  Then his expression turned sheepish as he rubbed the back of his neck.  “Uh, so what do you think?”

She shook her head.  “It’s perfect, Steve,” she replied earnestly.  “And just in time it seems too.”

Steve chuckled and walked towards her.  She couldn’t help smiling as he knelt in front of her to place a kiss upon her baby bump.  “We’re really excited to meet you, kid,” he said softly. 

“What, no Russian today?” Natasha teased. 

“Nope, not today,” confirmed Steve, rising to his feet and kissing her on the lips.  She returned the kiss eagerly.  When they broke apart, all they could do was smile at each other. 

“What’re you smiling at?” she quipped.

“What’re _you_ smiling at?” Steve fired back. 

“I asked you first.”

“I asked you second.”

“What happened to ‘ladies first’?”

Steve opened his mouth, but no words came out. 

Natasha just smiled.  “How about you just let me know when you come up with a comeback for that, hmm?”  She looked behind her and eyed all of the Hershey’s kisses.  “Now what am I going to do with all of these kisses?”

Steve’s eyes wander, as if considering his answer.  “Mm, how about give me a kiss on the lips for each one?”

Natasha scoffed.  “That’s an awful lot of kisses and in case you haven’t realized, we have an audience.”  She flicked her eyes downward. 

Steve laughed.  “You really think our baby cares about watching us kissing?”

“Maybe not, but I don’t want chocolate right now.”

“What do you want, baby?”

“Which baby are you talking to?”

Steve raised an eyebrow.  “Fine, smartass, what do _you_ want, Natasha?”

She smiled suggestively.  “I want you to go back into that living room and cuddle with me.  Please?” she added meekly. 

Steve rolled his eyes.  “Come on.”  She slipped an arm around the crook of his arm and they walked out of the nursery together. 

As they reached the living room, Steve sighed heavily.  Natasha knew that sigh. 

“What’s wrong?” she asked. 

“We’re going to be good parents, aren’t we?” he wondered, looking her in the eye. 

Natasha shook her head softly.  “Of course we will be.  No one’s perfect.”

Steve sighed again.  “I know, but just consider the life we lead.”

Natasha’s face fell serious.  “Steve, we’ve had this conversation a hundred times.  We’re going to be fine.  We can retire, just like we talked about.  We can find the nicest nook where we can raise our son in peace.”  She caught herself. 

“What did you just say?” asked Steve hoarsely. 

Natasha stammered.  She was done.  There was no way out of this one.

“We’re having a boy?”

 _Oh, what the hell?_   Natasha beamed.  “We’re having a boy.”

Steve’s arms were wrapped around her so quickly that she yelped.  He didn’t hurt her, but the surprise of it was palpable.  He then lifted her off her feet and spun her around a few times, just like he did the day that he proposed to her.  When he put her down, once again all they could do was smile at each other. 

“I didn’t know it was possible to be this happy,” Steve marveled. 

“You and me both, my love,” agreed Natasha.  Then she frowned.  She saw something on his chest.  It was a…red dot.  Why was there a red dot?  It couldn’t have been…  “Oh, my God.”

“Nat, what’s wrong?”

“STEVE, GET DOWN!” she shrieked, shoving him down.  No sooner as she spoke, the window behind them shattered.  Then there was violent pain in her chest.  She put her hand to her chest.  It came back up with blood.  She stared down at Steve on the ground.  “Steve?” she said weakly.  Suddenly she could barely stand, let alone see clearly.

“ _NATASHA!_ ” her ears picked up.

Then everything went black.    


	3. Chapter Two

Steve had to blink a couple times to register what the hell just happened.  One minute he and Natasha were just teasing each other, and then she told him to get down.  He did, but she wasn’t as fast.  Now there’s a hole in her chest and blood is quickly soaking her shirt. 

He barely had time to catch her as she fell.  “Steve…” she said again, her voice quavering. 

“Y-you’re going to be fine, Nat!” Steve stammered.  Sweeping her up in his arms, he rushed to the front door of their suite.  He activated the touchpad next to the door and keyed in Tony’s code. 

“Hey, Cap, what’s going…”

“Tony, Natasha’s been shot!” Steve shouted into the intercom.  “I’m on my way to the infirmary!”

There was a moment’s silence, but then Tony said, “I’ll notify Dr. Cho and her team.”  Steve was already halfway out the door with Natasha in his arms by the time Tony finished his sentence.  As he began to run, the alarms blared through the speakers, signaling a security breach in the complex. 

“Steve,” sobbed Natasha, her hands fisting painfully into his shirt.  “I don’t want to die.” 

“Try not to talk, baby,” Steve shushed.  “You’re not going to die.  You’re going to live a ridiculously long time and you’re going to help me raise that boy in your belly!”  He might have sounded confident in his own ears, but he was trying very hard to convince himself of that. 

As he ran, he passed the living room.  From the looks of it, most people were in the middle of watching a movie together, given the overturned bowl of popcorn and the large television playing. 

“Steve, what happened?” demanded Sam, rushing towards him. 

“Sniper!” Steve shouted simply. 

“Sniper?” repeated Rhodey. 

“That’s what I said, sniper!” shouted Steve, exasperated. 

“Well this sniper can’t have gotten far,” said Rhodey.  “Sam, come on.”

“I’m with you, pal,” said Sam.  “Wanda, help Steve.”

Even as he spoke, Wanda rushed over to help Steve.  Her hands started to tingle and Natasha suddenly felt much lighter in Steve’s arms. 

“Wanda, what’re you doing?” he asked as he ran.

“Her weight is slowing you down,” she explained, her face taut with concentration.  “I’m levitating her.”

Steve didn’t have any time to argue.  “Okay, fine just be careful and keep up.”  She was right though.  Steve was going as fast as he could, but he was also taking care in how fast he was running.  He was carrying his heavily pregnant wife in his arms. 

Despite his instruction to not talk, Natasha was spewing all kinds of nonsense in English and Russian.  She kept saying over and over again how she didn’t want to die.  Her words were quickly sounding more delirious due to blood loss.  Steve didn’t look back, but he had no doubt that a trail of blood was following in his wake as he traversed the complex. 

He could feel his wife’s own blood soaking through his shirt as he carried her.  “Why did the infirmary have to be so far from the residential area?” he moaned.  Technically, it wasn’t that far, but his wife was literally bleeding out in his arms. 

Finally, after running through hallways and going down an elevator, he finally reached the infirmary.  Wanda nearly burst the doors right off their hinges as they made it.  “Somebody help us!” screamed Steve. 

Even as he spoke, a nurse came toward him with a stretcher.  Gently, he set Natasha down onto it.  She grasped at his hands weakly.  “Steve, don’t leave me,” she begged.  Her grip on his hand was like iron. 

“I’m not going to leave you, Nat,” he promised her as the team of doctors led them to surgery.  Along the way, Tony burst through a door with Helen Cho.  The minute Tony’s eyes fell on Natasha, his face went chalk white. 

“Oh, my God,” he breathed.  “What happened?”

“Sniper,” Steve replied, out of breath.  “I think that bullet was intended for me, but she pushed me out of the way, and she got shot instead…” he was talking really fast and really hoarse.  “Sam and Rhodes are out looking for the shooter right now.”

“Okay, Cap, don’t worry we’ll take care of her,” Tony promised. 

They reached the operating room, but an orderly blocked Steve’s path.  Steve glared at the orderly.  “What’re you doing?  Get out of the way!”

The orderly looked positively terrified of him, a bead of sweat glistening on his forehead.  It wasn’t him who spoke though.

“Captain Rogers, we’ll take good care of her, but you can’t be in the room,” Dr. Cho told him, coming into his view. 

Steve was shaking his head violently.  “No, I _need to be with her_!”  He tried to shove past the orderly, but suddenly he couldn’t move.  He stared down at his wrists.  They were bound by ribbons of red energy.  “Wanda, let me go right now,” he ordered in a low voice.

“Cap, I know you’re in pain, but you need to let the doctors do their job,” said Tony, coming into his view. 

“But I need to be with her,” Steve repeated, struggling against Wanda’s powers.  For a minute, he wished that he hadn’t taught her to harness her powers so well.  He fell to his knees, sobbing.  He felt the restraints Wanda placed on his wrists loosen.  The restraints were replaced with her arms around his shoulders.  He grasped her arms in return. 

“She’s going to be fine, Steve,” she promised. 

“Do you know that, or are you just trying to make me feel better?” Steve countered bitterly.

“I don’t know, but let’s go to the waiting room.”  Wanda helped him to his feet and she helped steer him towards the waiting room. 

The infirmary is very much an unofficial hospital with a waiting room, a surgery room, an intensive care unit, and even the maternity ward set up in preparation for Steve and Natasha’s child.  Look back, Steve somewhat regrets opting to keep his impending fatherhood a closely guarded secret, but given who he and his wife are, the publicity of it would be merciless.  Plus, if the wrong people knew about his child, it could be exploited. 

Numerous times over the past eight and a half months, he has had awful nightmares of a child of his being kidnapped, never being seen again.  Usually those nightmares began as very good dreams.  Usually they started off as a scene, or a glimpse into a wonderful life he wants with his family.  The most recent nightmare he had, it was the 1940s.  He had come home from the war to find Natasha and his child—a son, which now feels like a premonition—waiting for him.  Natasha has donned forties hairstyles just for him once or twice lately, and she looks gorgeous in them if he says so himself. 

That happy reunion was quickly ruined as masked men stormed into his house.  He and Natasha fought off the fighters, but when it was all over, they realized their son was missing.  He awoke to a child’s voice screaming for him.  It turned out that voice was Natasha trying desperately to wake him from his nightmare. 

A part of him wished that _this_ was a nightmare.  He even pinched himself as he reached the waiting room.  Wanda steered him onto a couch. 

“I’ll go grab us coffees,” Tony volunteered.  He disappeared out the door and Steve barely registered it.

He sat on the couch and just stared at the wall.  Wanda sat next to him, cuddling close to him.  He allowed himself a smile at her closeness.  Whether it was an accident or on purpose, somehow Wanda has started to feel like a daughter of sorts to him.  If she was younger, he would have sought to adopt her.  Alas, she wasn’t.  One thing that he has sought to do is to get her a visa so that she can legally leave the premises.  Given her history, getting her a visa seems a monumental feat. 

He let her hold his hand. 

All that was running through his mind was the last year.  Being married to Natasha had been a dream come true.  Granted, it’s a dream that didn’t happen exactly as he originally hoped, but it happened.  Their lives didn’t get any less complicated and there were still battles to be fought, but they did it together now.  They have always fought well together, but eventually it just bled into a dance.  A very violent and chaotic dance, but a dance no less.  They fed off each other’s skills, in some ways better than with any of their colleagues.

They did have actual fights with each other, but somehow it just seemed to bring them closer together.  But then, she got pregnant!  It sounds harsh to call her pregnancy an accident, but neither of them ever expected that she could.  They did talk of reversing what was done to her body, but even for brilliant scientists like Bruce and Dr. Cho, figuring out a way to somehow slow her immune system enough to support a pregnancy was a lengthy process. 

It didn’t matter anyway, because she managed to get pregnant anyway.  His enhancements won out against hers.  It was the happiest accident of their shared life.

Minutes bled into what felt like hours.  Most of their colleagues joined them—everyone except Bruce and Thor.  No one has seen Bruce since Sokovia and Thor came and went as he pleased.  He’s been gone longer than usual lately.  All he said was that he needed search the cosmos for the remaining Infinity Stones like the one in Vision’s head, or the Tesseract.

Distantly, he heard Sam tell him that they apprehended the shooter and is now sitting in their interrogation room. 

Vision tried to offer some words regarding the whole mess, but he is pretty naïve when it comes to human interaction.  To be honest, Vision gives Steve too many memories of Ultron.  Vision is considerably less whiny and genocidal, but his philosophical attitude comes off as more annoying than anything else from time to time. 

Tony said that he left a message on Clint’s cell, explaining the situation.  Hopefully Clint will show up at some point. 

Finally, after…two hours according to Steve’s watch, a doctor showed up.  He was on his feet immediately.  “So what’s the situation?” he asked. 

The doctor took a deep breath.  That couldn’t have been a good sign.  “We were able to remove the bullet, but she’s lost a lot of blood.  The bullet missed her heart by less than an inch.”

“Will she be okay?” asked Steve, frantically. 

The doctor rubbed his hands against his scrubs.  Obviously, Steve was coming off as way too intimidating, so he tried to soften his appearance.  “She’s in a coma.  I don’t know when or if she will wake up.”

“And the baby?” urged Steve. 

“Because of the injury, we had to remove the baby,” explained the doctor.

“He’s not due for another week.”

“Yes, and he is being incubated as we speak.”  The doctor sighed.  “Would like to come see your son?”

Steve nodded vigorously.  The doctor walked away and he followed.  The doctor led him to a room away from where Natasha was.  The room he led him to had a window.  Within was the incubator that they brought in as a precaution.  Steve never thought it would be needed. 

Within the incubator, underneath all the medical equipment that seemed too big, was a tiny human with a small tuft of red hair on his head.  He was the most beautiful thing that Steve had ever seen.  He had to put his hand over his heart, it was thudding so hard.  His breath felt ragged, his clothes stained with his wife’s blood felt hot against his skin.  His knees felt weak out from under him; he had to steady himself with his other hand.  Pressing his hand against the glass only made his heart thump a little harder.

“Congratulations, Steve,” said Tony.  Steve hadn’t realized that his colleagues have come to see his newborn son. 

“I-I-I need to hold him,” he stammered.  He needed to feel that child in his arms.  His son needed to feel his father’s embrace for the first time.    

“We’ll do our best to make sure that happens, Captain Rogers, but he can’t leave that incubator yet,” the doctor explained to him.  “If it’s any consolation, he’s healthier than any baby—premature or full-term—I’ve ever seen and I’ve been delivering babies for twenty years. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to go check on your wife.”

Steve nodded simply, unable to take his eyes off the child in the incubator.  He put his hand on the window, as touching it would make the connection just a little stronger.  Finally, he turned to face his colleagues.  “I…I’m officially a father, everyone,” the word felt so strange, yet so delicious.  The word was ambrosia to his lips. 

He turned towards Sam and Rhodes and his face turned deadly cold.  The both of them shrank under his gaze, but he was sure they knew that it wasn’t meant for them.  “You said the shooter was in the interrogation room?” he asked in a venomous voice.

The both of them nodded gravely. 

“Let’s go introduce ourselves.”


	4. Chapter Three

Tony has seen the captain angry before.  Hell, they barely knew each other for an hour before they started arguing morals.  Steve doesn’t turn into a big green, dimwitted ape, but he has a way of making everything in the room turn a few degrees colder when he’s angry.  Tony has felt the brunt of the Steve’s anger when they disagreed on certain matters.  During the whole Ultron debacle, there was plenty of arguing. 

He would never admit it, but sometimes Tony does feel like he’s being scolded by his elder when Steve is angry with him.  Tony is “older” than him with more life experience, but Steve is technically old enough to be everyone’s grandpa.  He even called the star-spangled-bannered hero “Gramps” once or twice.  Steve didn’t enjoy it.   

Tony is relieved that that Steve’s anger isn’t directed towards him right now.  This time Steve’s anger is personal.  For God’s sake he nearly lost his wife and kid at same time!  Luckily, the both of them are alive…for now.  Romanov has slipped into a coma and the baby is in an incubator.  Pepper was so pissed when she found out Romanov was pregnant. 

Pepper found out about three months ago.  She came for a visit from New York.  Romanov hadn’t meant to run into her, but she had come from her rooms to see Steve who had come back from a mission and there was no hiding that baby bump.  Pepper was ecstatic!  She immediately started begging to be godmother.  She wasn’t given an answer, but Tony wouldn’t be surprised if Barton’s wife ends up being godmother to the baby. 

How can he even be thinking about all this right now?  They just saw Steve’s baby for the first time.  Steve himself, despite the tears in his eyes and being covered in his wife’s blood, looked like he was about to faint.  If he had, for once, Tony wouldn’t have been able to tease him for it. 

When he turned away from his newborn—or preemie, he might as well be called—Steve looked scary.  Tony had trouble keeping his composure under his dark gaze, even though he knew it wasn’t directed at him.  In that moment, Steve Rogers stopped being Captain America.  Instead he was just an angry man fearful for the lives of his family.

Without waiting for anyone, he started heading towards the interrogation room.  The complex didn’t originally have an interrogation room.  Tony didn’t think that they would ever actually need one, but then there was an incident several months back when they had some HYDRA operative in their custody.  Since they didn’t have an interrogation room, they took him to the gym, duct-taping the man to a punching bag. 

At least then, it was easier to threaten the accused with violence.  Now they have an actual interrogation room with a one-way window.  Steve headed towards the interrogation room at a determined pace.  Tony, along with most of their colleagues, struggled to keep up with him.  None of them dared to try to say anything to him. 

Steve is usually pretty levelheaded, but he now seemed like he could bite off anyone’s head at the slightest provocation.  The interrogation room was in one of the complex’s sublevels below the lap pool.  When the room was built, Tony considered designing it so that the room could be filled with water.  Steve and Romanov, surprisingly, were very against the idea of using the threat of drowning as a means of interrogation.  They compared it to waterboarding and Steve is against the use of waterboarding. 

Looking back now, Tony wondered if Steve regretted being against the water-filling idea.  He had a chance to read some SSR files, particularly regarding the Howling Commandos, so he knew for a fact that Steve is no stranger to extreme forms of interrogation.  Maybe rejecting extreme interrogation techniques is part of Steve’s way of leaving the war behind him. 

However, Tony has found himself wondering what things Steve had done during his time with S.H.I.E.L.D.  Despite the encrypted and decrypted files Romanov released to the public a couple of years ago, Steve’s involvement is still mostly classified. 

Was it possible that they were about to see Steve Rogers, the S.H.I.E.L.D. operative?  Steve himself, as well as Romanov, would say that he was less of an actual agent.  He worked _with_ S.H.I.E.L.D., not _for_ S.H.I.E.L.D.  During that time, he wasn’t a husband or a father.  Tony wasn’t sure when exactly Steve started dating Romanov—they wouldn’t disclose an exact date—but he’s sure that it might have been either right before or right after S.H.I.E.L.D.’s collapse. 

They were underground now where the only sources of light were the ceiling lights overhead.  The place, even in Tony’s opinion, was meticulously upheld.  There weren’t even any flickering lights.  He knew nothing of this would-be assassin, but he wondered if he was afraid of the dark.  That might present a problem since none of them had something to help them see through the dark. 

The long, narrow concrete corridor wasn’t very inviting.  While most of the complex had been renovated into becoming headquarters, as well as a place of residence, for the Avengers, a good number of the sublevels were left untouched.  Down here was where the most dangerous items were kept when it was just a series of warehouses built by Howard Stark. 

Much of those items have either been relocated or destroyed when the place became the new Avengers Facility.  Tony would be lying if he said that some of his father’s projects didn’t intrigue him.  Particularly his father’s failed inventions were very interesting.  He even managed to get some of the more practical inventions to work the way they were originally supposed to.  Most inventions however, Tony didn’t touch either because they were just too ridiculous or too dangerous.

Now most of these rooms are just empty, gathering dust until a new use for them can be found.  They could turn more of them into interrogation rooms, or even prison cells.  Turning the place into a prison of sorts would likely involve far too much paperwork.  It might also provoke some backlash when they already have such a delicate relationship with the public. 

People are still questioning the Avengers’ role as heroes after what happened in Sokovia.  Tony is still getting backlash from the government for his involvement in creating Ultron.  He has accepted responsibility, as well as donating millions to people who have lost their homes in Sokovia.  Still, he feels like he is getting mentally flogged for all of it.

Finally, they reached the interrogation room, deep within the depths—or should one say catacombs—of the Avengers Facility.  The room was strategically chosen where there were a number of turns and twists.  Really, getting around the place was pretty straightforward, but there was no need for a potential prisoner to know that.  They rearranged all the directions so as to confuse someone trying to escape.

Tony wasn’t sure if it was really within their jurisdiction to keep people hostage, but even he is capable of bending the rules.  Plus, this is personal.  That baby is not his, nor has he been named godfather (though he would really like the title) but he should not have been born this way. 

Steve activated the retinal scan just outside the door.  “Steve Rogers,” he growled.  The lock clicked and he burst through the door.  Tony was the first to follow through after him, followed by everyone else.  Surprisingly, Steve didn’t immediately burst through the next door which would have put him in the same room as the would-be assassin. 

Steve stood in front of the glass regarding the assassin.  The assassin himself didn’t look all that concerned about his situation.  Tony was surprised.  This “assassin” doesn’t even look the part.  Sure, assassins come in all shapes and sizes but this…kid couldn’t have been any older than twenty, maybe twenty-five at the most.

Maybe he was a prospect trying to prove himself to someone else.  Save for the nasty black eye and busted lip that might have been given by either Sam or Rhodey, the kid doesn’t look so bad.  He looked like he might have even come from a well-to-do family.  He had a mop of blond hair and chiseled features.  The upper body strength protruding from his long-sleeved shirt suggested a football background, or maybe a wrestling background?

He might have even been a high school pretty boy at one point. 

Watching Steve, all he was doing was looking at him as if he wished he could kill him just by scowling hard enough. 

Tony fished his glasses out his pocket and put them on.  “Friday, what can you tell me about this kid?”

Instantly, a screen of photographs started flashing through his vision.  Eventually a match appears.  “His name is Dorian Bass,” replied Friday.  As soon as she said the name, a number of photographs started to appear.  Or rather, lack of a number of photographs.  There weren’t even enough photos to fill a disposable camera.    

“Huh, this kid doesn’t have much of a social media presence,” wondered Tony.  “Does he have any priors?”  

“No, sir, but a year ago, he graduated from Special Forces training as a designated marksman,” continued Friday.

Tony studied the photos carefully, featuring Dorian in unmarked Army gear.  “So this kid was Delta Force.”

“It would appear so.”  A few more article siftings and something else appeared.  “Sir, here’s something.  According to this file, Dorian Bass was killed in action while on a reconnaissance mission in Afghanistan.  His entire unit disappeared, nothing of them was ever found.”

“So this kid is a ghost,” Tony summed up.  “He doesn’t even exist…”

“Shut up, Tony!” snapped Steve.  Everyone in the room jumped at the sound of his voice. 

Tony deactivated his glasses and fixed his gaze on Steve.   Oh, God does this mean that the captain is angry with him?  Is this his dark side?  Sometimes Tony has teased him for seemingly not having a dark side, but could this be it?  No, this can’t be it.  This is just a man in anguish. 

Steve breathed deeply.  “Look, I’m sure it’s all _really_ fascinating learning more about this kid, but how about we just skip to the part where we find out why he tried to shoot me and how he managed to slip past all of our defenses.” 

Tony looked around the room.  No one dared speak a word.  He wanted to believe that Steve’s anger wasn’t directed towards them, but he didn’t want to be on the receiving end of it either.  Behind those raging blue eyes, he could see he was holding back tears. 

Here was Steve Rogers, their strong, fearless, level-headed leader, and he was on the verge of tears.  He didn’t need to be here right now.  If anything, Tony thought everyone would understand if he just found a corner somewhere and wept for the lives of his wife and preemie son.   

“I’m going in there,” said Steve. 

“Steve…” began Sam, but Steve rounded on him with a dangerous look.  That look dared everyone to try and stop him.  It would probably take Vision to get him to stop.  Vision doesn’t even make a move, or say a word. 

Figuring that there is no more to say, Steve headed to the door. 

“Friday, buzz him in,” said Tony. 

The buzzer sounded and Steve burst through the door.  To Tony’s surprise, he didn’t pounce on Dorian Bass.  Rather, he just stood at his full height and slowly began to circle the room.  Dorian didn’t look even the slightest bit afraid.  He should have been because Tony was sure that everyone in this room wanted to get a piece of him.

“You’re a really good shot, kid,” Steve eventually said.

If his goal was to catch Dorian off-guard, it certainly worked.  Even Tony wasn’t expecting him to begin with that compliment.

“How far was that shot would you say?” continued Steve.  “About a twelve, thirteen hundred yards, do you think?  Very impressive, if I do say so myself.”  He stopped pacing, with his back to the one-way glass, he faced Dorian.  “Who hired you?  Why were you trying to kill me?”

Dorian slowly met his gaze.  Instead of answering, he spit in Steve’s face.  Steve didn’t even flinch.  Instead, he just calmly took out a handkerchief and wiped his face off. 

“Alright, fine, I’ll give you a night to sleep on it, kid,” he said.  “But consider this:  You shot Natasha Romanov.  I’m sure you’ve heard of her, so you know what she is capable of.  You see, she won’t care so much about the fact that you shot her.  What she _will_ care about is the fact that you’ve endangered the life of her newborn son.  Now assuming you are aware of her history, let me ask you:  how do you think that will compare to now, since you’ve endangered her baby’s life?  What do you think you’ll get when you add ‘vengeful mother’ to everything that is the Black Widow?”

Dorian’s face went deathly pale.  Steve was right.  Tony didn’t want to imagine what Romanov would do if she wasn’t in a coma right now.  It might be a little bit of a bluff because she is in a coma, but what will happen when she wakes up?

“Just think about that, Dorian,” said Steve.  “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This might have ended up being more of a character study about Tony, but I do believe that he spent a long time beating himself up over everything that happened with Ultron.


	5. Chapter Four

Steve wished that Bruce was there.  For that matter, he also wished Thor was there.  If for nothing else, they should have been there to meet his son.  Between the two of them at the moment, he wished that Bruce was there. 

He felt such anger that it seemed the only person he could relate to about it was the Hulk himself.  Not that Steve envisioned himself turning into some big green monster.  What he wanted was advice.  Bruce had his methods of controlling his anger, keeping a level head.  Didn’t Bruce practice meditation?  Steve felt he could use some advice in that matter. 

He also felt close enough to letting the Hulk throw Dorian around like a ragdoll.  He hated that feeling.  This anger felt so unfamiliar to him.  He had been angry before.  It never felt like this.  This all-consuming rage just…hurt.  As paradoxical as it seemed in his mind, there was joy in this anger he felt.  On one hand he wanted to just throw a tantrum and break everything in reach.  On the other hand, he wanted to cry to the heavens and sing praises to God, or whoever was listening. 

He was angry.  He was sad.  He was afraid.  He was full of joy.  He felt all these swirling emotions in such a swirling storm as never before.  The longer he stared at his child in that incubator, the more emotions he felt.  _His_ child.  That boy was his and Natasha’s.  He could humbly say that Natasha should feel more overjoyed than him over this child.

Her immune system was amplified to the point that she was effectively sterilized.  Her aging process was also slowed down to a halt.  It doesn’t take an expert to know that he wasn’t her first sexual partner, nor the first to win her heart, but he wasn’t going to settle for “lover”.  The term just seemed to imply a more physical connection.  He wanted the physical connection.  Hell he _enjoyed_ the physical connection.  That wasn’t all he wanted.  He wanted her body and soul.  He wanted everything.  He wanted to tear down all the walls she built around her heart and fill it with love.

If marrying her and having this child with her wasn’t proof that he managed to do that, then he didn’t know what was.  He just wanted to hold that child.  He wanted it so badly.  He wanted to google over the boy with his wife.  His son should be breastfeeding from his mother right now, not being incubated. 

That made him very angry.  Seeing all these things hooked up to his son like he was as injured as his wife was just _infuriating_!

“Hey, kid,” he said, staring into the incubator.  He glanced down at himself, feeling rueful.  The doctor said that he could be in the room, but he needed to wear scrubs and gloves.  He needed to be clean.

He opened his mouth to say more, but found all he could do was gaze down at the child.  Months of watching Natasha’s belly grow, talking to her baby bump was bliss enough, but paled in comparison to this.  He was so beautiful.  The boy was his little redheaded son.  He didn’t even know his son’s eye color yet. 

“I didn’t sleep a wink last night, buddy,” he finally managed.  How could he when all he could think about was the state of his wife and son?  How could he relax when his wife’s shooter was in a cell several floors below?  All it did was to further cement his feelings that he and his family should find somewhere else to live.  He didn’t grow up a farmer, but he wouldn’t mind living somewhere in the country if it meant keeping his family safe from the public eye.

“To tell you the truth, kid, I’m sorry you came into my life when you did,” he apologized.  “The world’s in a bit of a crazy place right now.  My colleagues and I are in a tight spot.  Last summer we saved the world and we’re getting a lot of backlash for it.  I’m not proud of the mess we made, but there’s only so much we can do when an angry robot decides to blow up humanity. 

“But you know what, son?”  He closed his eyes and breathed deeply.  “God, I’ll never get tired of that word.  That day when I thought I was going to die on a flying city was the same day your mother told me she was pregnant with you.”  He groaned at the memory.  It bothered him that Nick Fury overheard that conversation.  Based on his personal history with the man, he wouldn’t be surprised if Fury or S.H.I.E.L.D. someday saw an opportunity in his son. 

What could the world do with the son of Captain America and Black Widow?  If his son is going to enter a military life, or the life of espionage or superhero work, it will be his choice and only his.  If anyone were to try and strong-arm him into that kind of life, there will be hell to pay. 

Wait a minute; was it possible that this Dorian Bass was one of the people who overheard the conversation?  No, that couldn’t have been possible.  Fury swore that he was the only one on that helicarrier who heard that conversation.  Natasha believed him.  At least Steve thought she did. 

Fury is a ghost who exists only when he sees fit; there is no way of contacting him.

Suddenly, the boy started crying. 

“Oh, no,” Steve gasped.  He hesitated.  What was he supposed to do?  He couldn’t pick up the child.  That fact alone was enough to make _him_ cry.  Maybe he could touch him?  He took a deep breath and reached in through one of the hand holes.  With the lightest of touches, he rubbed the boy’s head. 

“Come on, now, don’t cry,” he begged.  He gazed upward.  “Oh, Nat, baby I need you.”  While she was pregnant, they sang Irish and Russian lullabies to her baby bump.  Suddenly, he couldn’t remember the words to any of them.  “Come on, buddy.”  He took a deep breath and sang the first song that popped into his head. 

_Come stop your crying_

_It will be all right_

_Just take my hand_

_Hold it tight_

As if the infant understood him, he grasped one Steve’s fingers with his tiny hand.  Steve’s breath hitched in his throat.  His heart throbbed in his chest.  Tears rolled down his cheeks as he continued singing the song.  He was sure he was off-key, but he couldn’t have cared less.  His son was grasping his finger.

Gradually, the boy stopped crying and started sleeping soundly again.  The heart monitor beeped rhythmically at a steady pace.  Natasha had better wake up soon or else she was going to miss a whole lot of firsts.  In the last few minutes, she had already missed his first fuss and now his first lullaby. 

Steve doesn’t know why he thought of that song.  Maybe it was from watching that movie _Tarzan_ with Clint and his family.  His mother used to read him those books when he was a child.  The movie was quite different from the books, but Steve enjoyed it.  The songs were very enjoyable as well.  He did have a Disney marathon with Natasha at one point and discovered that most of the movies based off the books he grew up with were quite different from their source material.

They got into a long discussion about it.  He could see the logic in altering a few storylines to make the stories more enjoyable for children.  Remembering some of the silent films he saw in his youth, he knew that plenty of those stories were originally quite bleak.  _The Hunchback of Notre Dame_ , for example.  The Disney version was still quite dark, but he doesn’t see how children could enjoy it if it were more like the book. 

What child would want to watch a Disney movie that would end with Quasimodo hugging Esmeralda’s lifeless body and dying of starvation?  And then have their corpses discovered years later and seeing Quasimodo’s body crumble to ash? 

That would be too much for a child to see in a movie. 

Steve removed his hands from the incubator.  He swallowed hard.  “Daddy will come back same time tomorrow.  Better yet, I’ll see you tonight.”  He turned on his heel and went to the changing room to remove his scrubs.  When he was done, he left the N.I.C.U.

Next up was his wife.  He walked quietly down the hall.  Being a soldier and his mother’s son, he knew to walk with his chin up and his eyes forward.  His eyes felt too heavy, his head too weak to doing anything other than walk with his eyes cast downward.  Somehow he became very fascinated in the cracks between the tiles.  He traced invisible paths in the tiles as he walked towards his wife’s room.  When he got there, he just stood in front of the door for a couple of minutes. 

All the Avengers had their own hospital rooms.  Other than the numbers on the doors, they each have their personal symbols on them.  Steve’s hospital room has a miniature of his shield on it.  Natasha’s has an hourglass like the one on her uniform.  At least she is out of surgery. 

He took a deep breath and opened the door.  He stopped halfway into the room.  She already has company.  He has come face to face with Clint and Laura. 

Laura was the first to break the silence.  “Steve, oh my God, I’m so sorry,” she sobbed, rising from her chair and closing the distance between them.  She wrapped her arms around him in a sisterly hug.  He stood frozen for a minute, but soon returned the hug. 

He lifted his gaze to meet Clint’s eyes.  The man looked about as emotional as his wife while trying to keep himself together at the same time. 

“Hey, Steve,” he greeted quietly.  He looked him over.  “You look terrible,” his tone suggested a smirk, but his face was sympathetic.

“Clint,” Steve returned as Laura broke away from him.  “When did you guys come in?” 

“Half an hour ago,” replied Laura.  She wiped at her eyes with the pads of her thumbs.  “This is so awful.  And just a few days ago, Nat was asking me for a pep talk on childbirth.  I’ve done it three times; I told her as much as I could, but you know I asked my mother what to expect when I was expecting Cooper and it didn’t matter.”

Clint smirked.  “I still don’t forgive you for that black eye you gave me while you were in the delivery room.”

Laura laughed, but it sounded more like a hiccup.  “A baby was coming out of my vagina; what do you expect?”  The couple shared a private laugh for a moment.  “Speaking of babies, how is yours Steve?”

“Healthy,” he replied.  “Doctors expect he could come out of that incubator any day now, but they do need to keep an eye on him.”  His eyes glistened as he exhaled.  “I need to hold my child.  I need my wife to wake up.  My boy needs a name for God’s sake.”

Clint frowned.  “Your son doesn’t have a name yet?”

Steve stared at him like he had been slapped in the face.  “No!” he cried.  “Natasha and I were supposed to do that together.” 

Clint sighed and walked towards him, placing a hand on his shoulder.  “Your wife is going to wake up and your kid is going to come out of that incubator.  You know why?”

“Why?” asked Steve, bitterly. 

Clint grinned.  “Because the Natasha Romanov-Rogers I know would kill any man who stood in her way before she let a bullet stop her from being there for her two favorite guys in the whole world.”

“What about you?”

Clint turned to look at Natasha’s comatose form in her bed.  Her red hair was fanned out against the pillow and a tube was protruding from her mouth.  She heals fairly quickly, so Steve had confidence that she would be breathing on her own fairly soon.  Clint turned back to face him with a wistful smile.  “I think I’ve been pushed back to _third_ favorite guy now that she has you and your son.”

“I’m pretty sure I’m her second favorite,” Steve added.  “I’m probably just the glorified sperm donor who gets to share her bed now.”

The three adults burst out laughing with Laura managing, “Steve Rogers, don’t sell yourself short!” punctuating it with a playful punch to his shoulder.  Steve let out an undignified yelp, but was soon laughing again.

Suddenly a certain sound stopped all three of them.  Steve’s face fell as he saw Natasha’s heart monitor.  She was flat lining.  “Oh, my God,” he whispered.  “Somebody help!”

Even as he spoke the doctor and nurses were rushing into the room.  “Charge the defibrillator!” ordered the doctor. 

Laura and Clint backed Steve out of the room, but all he could do was stare.  They didn’t close the curtains, so he was left to watch as they tried to restart her heart.  Every charge sent through her body was like a gunshot to his heart. 

“Don’t do this to me, baby,” he pleaded through his tears.  He repeated the phrase over and over again, whispering the utmost declarations of love for his wife, his partner, and the mother of his child.  “I love you so much.”

As if she heard him, the heart monitor resumed beeping steadily.  Around him, Clint and Laura were letting out sighs of relief.

“I’m going to kill that bastard,” he growled.  He started walking, no stalking.  His breath was uneven, come in and out in heaves.  He heard Clint’s voice.  On his way out of the hospital ward, he passed Cooper and Laura.  Wanda was playing with Nate in his baby carrier.  Seeing Nate, his godson, only infuriated him further.  Clint and Laura got to hold their newborn son when he was born without complications.

That was not fair. 

He passed Tony, but ignored him.  He broke into a sprint, practically jumping down flights of stairs as he made his way to the catacombs of the complex.  Eventually, he made it to the room where the Iron Man suit stood guard autonomously. 

The suit met his gaze.  It walked towards him and when it spoke, it was Tony’s voice.  “Cap, buddy, stop.”

“Get out of my way!” screamed Steve.  He knocked the suit out his way as if it weighed nothing.  He keyed in the code to the room furiously and opened the door.  Dorian was lying down on the bed slab.

“Captain America, how’s the wife?” the kid asked. 

Steve trembled violently.  With a scream, he pounced on him.  Dorian had no time to react.  He wasn’t a very skilled fighter, but nor was Steve using any fighting techniques he had honed.  All he wanted to do was hurt him.  He soon had Dorian under him, straddling his waist.  He started punching every inch of him his fists could touch. 

“YOU SON-OF-A-BITCH!” he screamed, punctuating every word with a punch.  “MY WIFE AND I SHOULD BE HOLDING MY BABY RIGHT NOW BUT YOU _STOLE THAT FROM ME_!”  He’s never felt this kind of rage, never lost control like this.  Suddenly he felt arms like iron wrap around him, pulling him off of Dorian.  “LET GO OF ME, VISION!” he screamed, tears staining his cheeks as he tried to pull himself free. 

“You know I can’t do that, Captain Rogers,” said Vision calmly.  “If I let go of you, you’ll kill him.”

“I don’t care!” sobbed Steve. 

“Steve.”

He glanced upward and saw Sam.  The man was still catching his breath from having run all the way down here.

“This ain’t who you are, buddy,” he said, panting.  “Natasha wouldn’t want to see you like this.  She’s the dark one, remember?” he added. 

Steve breathed hard as an image of Natasha’s horrified look crossed his mind.  He glanced down at Dorian, who was spitting out blood.  He eyes were swelling.  He was trying to say something as he cowered against the corner.

“What?” he choked out.

“Crossbones,” sobbed Dorian.  “I know who he is.  He hired me.” 

Vision’s grip on Steve loosened.  He heard the name before.  The man has been a thorn in Steve’s side for months. 

“Who is he?” demanded Steve.

“Brock Rumlow!”

The whole room quiets.  Steve shares a look with his colleagues. 

“Oh, shit,” breathed Sam. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I might have ended up adding a more personal vendetta to the arc between Natasha, Steve, and Rumlow leading up to the events of the beginning of Civil War, but I hope you're all enjoying this so far. 
> 
> And sorry. I love Steve and his family, don't worry.


	6. Chapter Five

“What do we know about Rumlow?” asks Steve.  He is slumped in the rocking chair of his son’s nursery.  This room feels like a cruel joke.  He spent so long, worked so hard, and put so much thought into it.  Sometimes, putting this room together was a good stress-reliever. 

He and Natasha were so thrilled that they were going to become parents that no one ever considered the side effects.  With pregnancy came the hormones and with the hormones came the mood swings.  Black Widow and hormonal mood swings are not the best mix.  At one point, Natasha threw knives at him just for getting her the wrong ice cream to satisfy her cravings.  The sad part was that it was her favorite ice cream, yet that wasn’t the ice cream she wanted. 

He made the mistake of telling her that she was the one who didn’t say specifically which flavor of ice cream she wanted.  She was standing near the knife block and he was soon dodging knife after knife.  Clint and his family had come for a visit and he had walked in at the wrong moment.  A paring knife landed in his thigh.  As if by the snap of the fingers, Natasha went from being pissed to falling to her knees and begging for forgiveness. 

She spent a whole hour crying while Clint was carted off to the infirmary to remove that knife in his leg.  Laura claimed to not hold the whole accident against Natasha, but she seemed to be trying very hard to not be angry.  The kids, on the other hand were laughing hysterically.  Steve is certain they were worried about their dad, but they couldn’t stop laughing about it.  

They thought it was just another day in the life of the Avengers.  Maybe that is true, but there’s no battle plan for a pregnant assassin!   

Steve still isn’t sure if Clint has forgiven her for that knife to the thigh.  At least he isn’t limping anymore.  Natasha will be grateful to know that.  He is certain the archer is simply biding his time, waiting for a moment when Natasha is least expecting it.  As long as it’s nothing lethal, Steve figures he will just sit back and enjoy the show.  He likes seeing those two squabbling.

For that brief moment that Natasha stood in this room, Steve felt like prouder of himself than ever.  For his wife, being pregnant was very hard on her.  He knew she was happy about it; it was her miracle that she never thought would happen.  However, having to stay put, away from the public eye, and not being able to do anything took its toll on her.  Every time Steve left for a mission with the Avengers, or chased down another fruitless lead with Sam on Bucky’s whereabouts, she wanted to help.

He tried to let her help in whatever capacity she could, but he knew she would have rather helped in the form of putting on her cat suit and being in the action with him.  After all this time, he wouldn’t be surprised if she burns all of her maternity clothes. 

She will have to wake up first.

“Steve, are you listening to anything I said?”

Steve snaps out of his thoughts and his eyes find Sam waving a hand in front of his face.  “What?” he asks.

Sam rolls his eyes.  “I said that nothing has changed since we first looked into the whole thing five days ago.” 

“Oh,” grunts Steve.  All they know about Brock Rumlow is that he is a ghost.  The man barely survived the Triskelion disaster.  Apparently his escaped the hospital in the middle of treatment and no one has seen him since.  The man was one of S.H.I.E.L.D.’s top agents; he won’t be found unless he wants to.  Rumlow was a good soldier, played his part in their S.T.R.I.K.E. team well. 

Rumlow might be a ghost, but there have been a string of terrorist attacks that have been linked to a man known only as Crossbones.  There have been photos of the man, even a video or two of the man and his team sending threatening messages, but finding him has proven difficult.  The Avengers have many resources at their disposal, as well as contacts through Steve and Natasha’s former association with S.H.I.E.L.D., but Rumlow knows how to avoid them all. 

Terrorists are annoying enough, but when one of them happens to be a former S.H.I.E.L.D./HYDRA minion, that makes it seem all the worse.

In between searching for leads on Rumlow and trying to keep his distance from Dorian lest he actually kill the kid, Steve has been trying heroically to keep it together.  If he wasn’t putting the Avengers through drills, he was staring at his son or sitting by his wife. 

He has broken down more than once.  Just this morning, he woke up thinking he was spooning his wife only realize he was just hugging a pillow.  He wants to hold his wife.  He wants to share his bed with her.  After spending so much time being a married man and sharing a bed with an amazing woman, his bed feels way too big for him.  If his wife doesn’t wake up eventually, he might actually develop a fear of big spaces…or just big beds.  What’s the point of having a king-sized bed if you don’t have a gorgeous redhead who can kick your ass to share it with? 

He has had to sleep alone before.  He has slept alone when he was away for more than a day at a time.  Sleeping alone because his wife is in a coma is just awful. 

As a distraction more than anything, he was able to get a little inkling as to why Dorian tried to kill him. Dorian claimed he didn’t know the full story, but it seems ever since the Triskelion and the fall of S.H.I.E.L.D. Rumlow has had something of a vendetta against him.  As far as Rumlow is concerned, Steve is squarely to blame for all the “bad shit” that has happened.  From ruining what was meant to make the world a better place (how Project Insight was meant for that, Steve has no clue) to blaming him for Rumlow’s disfigurement, Rumlow has been searching for an opportunity to kill Steve.

Apparently, the Avengers complex had been under surveillance and no one even knew about it.  Dorian swore that Rumlow is unaware of Natasha’s pregnancy.  Dorian didn’t even know about it until he had Steve in his crosshairs.  

Either way, for Steve, it has made Rumlow all the more dangerous.  

He’s also been paying very close attention to his son.  He has taken in every little detail of that boy.  Last night when he gave up on trying to rest, he got out his sketchbook and started sketching.  He must have drawn at least twenty pictures of his son. 

It amazes him how much he loves that boy.  It frightens him how much he loves his son.  Many consider him a sort of moral compass for the Avengers, but that might change if someone were to harm his little boy.  He almost crossed a line the other day when he almost beat Dorian to death.  A part of him thinks that he might actually do worse than Natasha to someone who harmed his son.  That thought alone is enough to give him nightmares. 

The boy doesn’t even have a name yet.  He is tired of using the phrases _kid_ , _son_ , _my boy_ , and _little one_.  Those are all great nouns, but the boy needs a name.  He wants to name the kid after his childhood best friend.  James.  He could name his kid James.  Natasha would want to name his after her best friend.  He would even want his son’s name to be Russian.  He wants his son’s name to emphasize both his parents’ heritage.  If he understands Russian names correctly, his son’s name would be Stefanovich.

“James Clinton Stefanovich Rogers,” he mutters.

“What?” asks Sam. 

“What?” Steve echoes, having gotten lost in his thoughts again.       

“I also said that that baby of yours is ready to come out of that incubator,” says Sam.  “Don’t you want to hold him?”  

Steve straightens up so suddenly, Sam yelps.  “Hell yeah!”  Without even waiting for his friend, Steve grabs a baby blanket and rushes out of the nursery and out of his apartment.  He doesn’t even bother with the elevator.  Taking two steps at a time, he rushes down the stairs.  If it were a spiral staircase, he would slide down the railing. 

He reaches the floor that the hospital is on and sprints towards it.  He reaches the lobby to see that everyone is here.  Panting, he barely gives them a look.  He is much slower as he walks down the hall towards the N.I.C.U.  Every step feels heavier as he closes the distance to that dreadful room, that room that has denied him the simple pleasure of actually holding his little boy. 

He reaches the window first and sees that his son is not even in his incubator anymore.  He walks into the room, not even bothering with sterilizing himself.

He’s waited long enough.  The doctor is standing by a monitor with a clipboard.  He sees Steve and straightens up.  “Captain Rogers, would you like to hold your son?”

Steve nods numbly.  He unfolds the black and red spider-webbed blanket and the doctor carefully lifts the infant into them.  A small laugh escapes Steve’s throat as he feels the weight of the child in his arms.  That laughs steadily builds up into a sob. 

“He’s so beautiful,” he whispers shakily.  The tiny redhead was fast asleep in his arms.  “Come, my child.  You’ve spent too much time in this room.” He held the baby close to him as he turns on his heel and left the room, never taking his eyes off his son. 

“Let’s go meet your mother, hmm?” he suggests.  He walked down the hall, not caring about his friends who have come to stare at the child.  When he reaches his wife’s room, Clint was there to open the door for him.  Steve briefly flicks his eyes towards his colleague.  The archer is beaming as he claps him on the shoulder. 

Once he is in Natasha’s room and the door closes behind him, he goes to sit in the armchair pulled up close to her bed.  He smiles through his tears at his wife.  “Hey, baby, look who finally decided to come out of his incubator.” 

Natasha doesn’t even stir. 

Steve sighs heavily.  “Look, Nat, I really need you to wake up,” he tries to sound serious, but he is sure he’s failing.  “I need you.  Our son needs you.  He needs a name.  He needs his breastmilk.”  He feels awkward saying that, but it’s the truth.  Natasha was very clear.  Their son was going to be breastfed. 

“I was thinking James,” Steve continues.  “What do you think?  I just thought of a whole name—James Clint Stefanovich Rogers.  We could even add your name, Romanova.  James Clinton Stefanovich Romanova Rogers.  Do you think our kid will hate us for giving him a long name?  We could even call him ‘Jim’ or ‘Jimmy’ until he grows tired of it.”

He groans.  “Well, Nat, maybe we’ll try again tomorrow.  I love you.”  He rises from his chair, taking care to keep his son steady.  He bends forward to plant a kiss on Natasha’s forehead and then heads for the door. 

“If you leave this room without me holding my son, I will kill you.”

Steve stops dead in his tracks.  He turns around and sees his wife.  Her eyes are open and a wide, though weak, smile is spread across her beautiful face.

“Well, are you just going to stand there like a dork, or are you going to let me hold James?” her croaky voice quips.

Steve is sobbing all over again as he shakes his head.  “Natasha Rogers, you scared me!” he laughs as he walks towards her. 

“Maybe I should get shot more often,” she mutters as she struggles into a sitting position.  All humor disappears from her face as Steve held their baby out to her.  Her green eyes go wide as saucers and her breath hitches in her throat as she takes the baby in her arms.  “Oh, my God,” she breathes.  “He’s…he’s perfect.”  She plants a kiss on James’s forehead.  “ _Hi, James_ ,” she coos in Russian.  “ _I’m your mother and I’m going to love you forever._ ”  She plants another kiss on his forehead before meeting her husband’s gaze. 

He bends down and meets her lips.  She returns the kiss with fervor.  “ _How long did I have to wait to hold my baby_?” she demands, continuing her native tongue between their kisses. 

“ _Eight days_ ,” replies Steve.  “ _And that’s our baby, thank you very much_.”

“ _My Valentine’s Day gift to you_ ,” she declares.  She frowns as she stares at their son.  “ _You think he’ll hate himself for being born on Valentine’s Day_?”

Steve considers that.  “ _I was born on the Fourth of July_ ,” he reminds her.  “ _We’ll make sure he doesn’t hate himself_.”  He cranes his neck and sees everyone ogling them through the window.  “Tony thought we should name him Valentine,” he adds, returning to English.

Natasha scowls, but it’s directed at Tony himself.  “Our son’s name will _not_ be Valentine,” she warns in English. She smiles down at their son again.  “I know we don’t have a bottle of wine, but here’s to our little James, Steve.”

Steve smiles and kisses her again.  “Here’s to our family, my love.”

"So where's the man who shot me?" asks Natasha. 

Steve sighs.  "Down in one of the sub-level cells."  

Natasha's expression turns dark.  "I'd very much like to meet him soon."  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm seeing Captain Marvel tonight. I'm so excited!
> 
> Edit: I just got out of Captain Marvel. Great great movie! Not my favorite, but it’s definitely up there. The character herself seems like Marvel’s answer for Superman, but other than that I loved the movie. The performances were stellar, the humor was nicely done, the story wasn’t Marvel’s strongest, but this movie is definitely getting more hate than it deserves. Good “kitty”.
> 
> As for this series, the next arc (chronologically) will pick up during the events of Civil War. I do plan to cover Age of Ultron, but honestly I don't care enough about that movie to really "rewrite" all of it. I'll just be covering it enough to show Natasha announcing her pregnancy to her husband. 
> 
> And let me know if anyone would like to see more of her pregnancy. More of her...mood swings.


	7. Chapter Six

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To those who have followed this story, it might be good to reread the previous chapter for the changes I've made. I hope you enjoy this one!

It was another week before Natasha was discharged from the infirmary.  During that time, Steve spent every moment he could with her.  Tony teasingly asked if he would go insane without spending time with his wife and son. 

Steve is sure he would have.

Due to the location of Natasha’s injury, breastfeeding wasn’t an easy task.  Her whole chest was bandaged and even breathing wasn’t the very comfortable for her.  Not wanting to affect her breastmilk, Natasha refused any strong painkillers for her injury, taking only Tylenol.  It dulled the pain somewhat, but Steve could tell that she was still severely sore.  Holes were cut into her bandages around her nipples so that James could breast feed. 

Not long after they held James together for the first time, their colleagues started pouring into the room.  Steve had never been so happy in his life.  He has a family.  He has a sexy wife and a beautiful baby boy.  And they were all there for their friends to see.  They officially introduced James Clinton Stefanovich Romanova Rogers to the Avengers. 

Clint got visibly emotional before he could stop himself.  Everyone caught him rubbing his eye.  Steve and Natasha agreed that their son’s only present namesake should be the first to hold James.  Laura had to push him towards Natasha’s bed.  The moment the baby was placed in the archer’s arms, tears began welling up in his eyes.  He was silent for several seconds before he locked eyes with his best friend. 

“Does this mean you regret all those times you complained to me that you’d never be a mother?” he asked her. 

Everyone in the room laughed—softly, so as not to disturb the baby.  Soon Clint gave the baby to his wife.  She sobbed.  All she could do was rejoice at finally being an aunt.  Clint gave his wife a one-armed hug and planted a kiss on her cheek. 

Pepper had come to the complex to see the child and she couldn’t believe her eyes.  Steve and Natasha had a baby!  Steve couldn’t help sharing a smile with his wife.  Pepper wasn’t very happy when she first saw Natasha’s baby bump.  All they could do was apologize for that fact that they wanted to keep their child’s existence as secret as possible.   

It seemed to have turned into a small event of their baby being carefully passed around.  Those words didn’t sound right in Steve’s mind, so he didn’t voice them.  It was just too bad that Bruce and Thor, wherever they were, weren’t there to witness the event.  Between the two of them, only Thor was aware of Natasha’s impending motherhood.

He promised he would pray to Frigga and Freyja to ensure their son’s safety.  Natasha knew as little about Norse traditions as Steve did, but they thanked their Asgardian friend anyway.  Steve joked whether their child could rule Asgard or not if he or she could lift his hammer.  Thor didn’t answer.  He must have still been uncomfortable with the fact that Steve could pick up the hammer. 

When Tony was offered to hold James, he refused, claiming he didn’t like children.  At that, Natasha said,

“Stark, shut up and hold my son.”

Everyone’s eyes were on the billionaire.  Eventually he caved.  Wanda was holding James at the moment and she carefully handed him to Tony.  Tony still looked a bit uncomfortable, but that quickly changed.  “He doesn’t do much, does he?” he quipped.  Then the worst thing happened…for Tony anyway. 

James urinated on him.

At first no one reacted, not even Tony.  Slowly, Tony walked back over to Natasha and carefully placed James back in her arms.  Then he rose to his full height and straightened his blazer, even if there was a noticeable stain where James peed on him. 

“The Baby Avenger needs a new diaper and I need to change out of this three-thousand-dollar suit.”  He turned on his heel and left the room. 

That’s when everyone started laughing.  The laughs must have hurt Natasha because she paused several times to wince.  Steve asked Pepper if maybe she should go check on Tony to make sure he wasn’t scarred for life.  She waved off his question.  James having an accident on Tony was the highlight of her year.  She said that next time they should have Tony change James’s diaper.

Steve and his wife liked that idea.  Even Rhodey said he would pay to see Tony get himself through changing a diaper.

The rest of the week, Steve fell into a routine of seeing his wife.  After that first day, he was on his way back to their apartment with James, but Natasha stopped him.  She asked if James really had to go.  Steve told her that he had to.  James’s nursery was in their apartment.  Steve promised that he would come to her room with James every day.  Natasha suggested bringing the crib into her room.  With a heavy sigh, Steve asked how she expected to help James when he starts crying when she can barely get out of bed. 

She couldn’t stand to be far from her baby.  Steve took her hands in his, kissed them, and repeated his promise that he would come with James every day.  It was difficult hiding his smile at seeing his wife grumble like a child not getting what she wants. 

“So this is what separation anxiety looks like,” Steve said out loud.  He immediately regretted it and squeezed his eyes shut for a slap or a punch that ended up not coming.  He opened one eye to see Natasha giving him a funny look.  “We’re going to be alright, right?” he asked her.  

It was her turn to kiss his hands.  “I don’t know, babe.  If we have to, we’ll improvise every step of the way.” 

It seems that the improvisations started right then and there.  Steve set up a cot in Natasha’s room next to her bed.  He also carried James’s crib down to her room as well.  It was a bit much for the small room.  Steve jokingly reminded his wife of his hope to raise their child somewhere away from their lives as Avengers.  No Avengers, no Captain America, no Black Widow, just Steve and Natasha and their son.

Nothing in their lives ever seemed to come easy.  Why couldn’t things just be easy?  Clint overheard that complaint and sagely told them that the first time being a parent is never easy.  He and Laura thought they were prepared for when Cooper was born, but they still felt overwhelmed.  All they could do was improvise. 

In the days leading up to Natasha’s discharge, she and Steve barely had any good sleep.  James kept waking up and crying.  Sometimes it seems like he started crying as soon as his parents fell asleep again.  Natasha tried to sing James a lullaby, but he kept crying.  She tried to sing to him in every language she knew. That’s when Steve stepped in.  He sang him that Phil Collins song he loved so much. 

True to the song’s lyrics, their son will always be in their hearts.  Natasha felt so inadequate.  Steve quipped that she was just jealous that he did something better than her.  She flipped him off.  He smacked her hand away.  They weren’t going to swear in front of their baby!  He wagged his finger and called her a bad girl.  She stuck her tongue out at him.

With lack of sleep, their mutual crankiness increased.  Steve found himself getting a little snappier with his colleagues each passing day.  He snapped at Wanda for making a mess while trying to teach Vision how to bake cookies.  It was just a silly mistake and he scolded her as if she caused unnecessary mayhem out on the field.  He made the poor young woman cry and later apologized heavily.  Maybe he went a little overboard apologizing with a fresh batch of her favorite oatmeal raisin cookies just for her. 

She joked that she should make him feel awful more often if it meant getting a personal batch of cookies.

Natasha got frustrated over a nurse changing her I.V.  She stabbed the poor young woman through the hand with a needle. There wasn’t anything in it, but it must have hurt like hell.  Plus, Steve was sure that she didn’t have an exceptional pain tolerance. 

He witnessed the whole exchange and shook his head at his wife.  “Why did I marry you, again?” he asked.  “Sometimes I can’t tell if I married a gorgeous woman, or a dangerous pest.”

Natasha smiled up at him, her cheeks crinkling against the bags under her eyes that were mirrored on his face.  “You married me because you like sexy pests.”  She spread her arms in a presentational gesture.  “I’m your personal pest, baby.”

He nodded thoughtfully.  “In that case, I’ll remember to buy you a muzzle.”

She growled playfully.  Then the most beautiful thing happened.  Their son made a little sound.  He was trying to growl!  Their newborn baby boy was growling like his mommy!  Steve picked up his son from his crib and cuddled up with his wife.  They took turns making little growls.  Eventually James started growling back! 

James was their little monster!  They agreed that the word a little harsh.  Wild thing.  James is their little _wild thing_ , like that children’s book _Where the Wild Things Are_.  That book made Steve sob the first time he read it.  It was Tony who pointed the book out to him, calling it his favorite children’s story that his mother read to him as a kid. 

Was it possible their combined genes might have accelerated his growth development in any way?  They refuse to have their son become some sort of science project, so they might never know.  They will just have to watch their son grow and see what happens.

Another thing that worsened as the days went by—for Natasha anyway—was her anger towards Dorian.  Sometimes it seemed like James was the only thing keeping Natasha from escaping her hospital room and storming down to Dorian’s cell. 

When the day came that Natasha was finally discharged, Steve thinks that he managed to distract her for at least a few minutes.  When Steve rolled her and James out the infirmary and into their apartment, a welcome home party was in order.  James was officially welcomed into the world.  Lila and Cooper had made a batch of cookies for Steve and Natasha. 

They both tried one and neither of them had anything bad to say about them.  Those kids were getting better at their “unsupervised” baking, as Laura described it.  Clint said that if they did screw up, at least it would have been the Avengers complex’s kitchen instead of his.  Tony told him that if those kids burnt down the kitchen, he would sue them. 

What would he sue them for?  They had no income other than their allowance from their parents.  Tony’s answer was he would sue them for their favorite toys.  Laura threatened that if he sued her children, she would shave off his “stupid beard.”

Everyone laughed at that. 

Natasha’s humor didn’t last long.  She rose out of her wheelchair and handed James to Laura. 

“I have some unfinished business with a man who tried to kill my husband, and who almost killed my baby,” she informed the woman darkly.

So now, still in her hospital gown, Steve followed his wife down to Dorian’s cell.  He had no intention of arguing with whatever she had planned.  That’s just it.  He doesn’t think that she has a plan. 

He only helped her when he saw her stagger a little bit.  “Baby, are you sure you’re ready for this?” he asked her, gripping her waist to steady her.  He is careful not to put any pressure where she is sore.  “You’re weak; you need rest.”

She took a deep breath and fixed her eyes on him.  He isn’t sure if her angriest or darkest looks have ever really frightened him.  This look does make him a little uneasy.  He knows that this anger isn’t directed towards him.  If it was, he would likely run for his life.  “Steve, you know I love you for caring, but I’ve rested long enough.”  She reaches up and grabs fistfuls on his shirt.  He can feel her nails digging into his chest. 

She presses her forehead to his shoulder.  She begins to jerk with sobs.  “This son-of-a-bitch almost stole you from me.  He made our son spend the first week of his life in an incubator.  My chest is sore and breastfeeding hurts!” 

Steve wraps his arms around her and shushes her.  He pushes her away slightly.  “Look at me, Nat.”  It clearly takes some effort, but she gazes up at him.  “I love you, Natasha.  You’re alive; I’m alive; we have a healthy baby boy.  I couldn’t be happier.  You and our son are all I need.”

Natasha smiles with effort.  “So how about you just let me go down and gloat to this lousy assassin?”

“I wouldn’t have it any other way,” says Steve.  “But if you hurt yourself, I’m pulling you out.  Right now, Dorian has the upper hand.”

His wife raises an eyebrow.  “Want to bet on that?”

“Want to bet on your stitches breaking?  My beautiful spider isn’t invincible.”

“I know I’m not invincible, Steve,” Natasha grumbles.  “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have some angry mothering to do.  Remember that movie, _The Revenant_ a few months back?”

Steve nods. 

“I’m like that angry mother bear who attacked Leonardo DiCaprio.  This man threatened my young and my mate.”  She smiles darkly.  “I’m your personal angry mama-bear.”

Steve can’t help but smile.  “If you weren’t injured and recovering from pregnancy, I’d make love to you right here, right now in the middle of this gloomy hallway.”

“Mm,” Natasha wiggles her eyebrows.  “You’d make love to me right here when we’re in the view of a camera or two?”

“That rhymes.”

Natasha moans and buries her head in his chest again.  “What _have_ I done?  I’ve corrupted Captain America.” 

Steve pats her head affectionately.  “You can corrupt me anytime you want.”

“Then save a bath for me tonight, please?” she begs.  “Enjoy a few minutes with me before our son needs us again?”

“Anything for you,” promises Steve.  He might even offer to kiss wherever she aches, but he’s not sure if either of them would be able to stop themselves from there.  Sometimes they just need to touch each other.  “Now are you going to give this asshole what for, or not?”

“Language, Steve,” his wife scolds as they detach.  “Don’t make me put soap in your mouth.”  She whips around and saunters off.  It’s not her smoothest gesture.  She winces in the middle of swaying hips suggestively.  “Shut up.”

“I didn’t say anything,” says Steve, resisting the urge to give her a playful spanking.  He follows in her stride as she finishes her trek to the cell in which he told her Dorian was in several days ago.  She stops to face the young man through the one-way window.  He can feel her seething. 

“He looks awful,” she says after a few minutes.

Steve sighs at seeing Dorian’s bruises which are still fading from his beating.  “I had a rough time while you were in a coma.  That time you coded, I just lost it.”

She grasps his arm lovingly.  “I’m not leaving my boys anytime soon,” she promises.  With that, she lets him go and goes to the door leading into the room.  She performs the retinal scan and the lock clicks.  She swings the door open.  Steve observes the scene from the other side of the glass. 

Dorian’s face pales, his bruises standing out against the rest of his skin.

“You know who I am, don’t you?” asks Natasha, her voice deadly calm…and sweet.  She begins to walk slowly around the table.

Dorian seems to have lost his voice. 

“You shot me, remember?” continues Natasha.  “You aimed a gun at Steve Rogers, in the peace of his home, but instead you shot me.  You almost killed my baby.”  She stops just behind Dorian and leans in close to his ear.  “You have probably heard this same speech already from my husband, but now you’re facing me directly.  You’re probably well-aware of my reputation.  I was taught that love is for children.  They thought the enhancements they gave me would sterilize me.  For a long time it did.  Then I met my husband.

“There is something that the Red Room never considered.  They thought attachments make people weak.  I suppose they might have been right, but I fell in love.  I married a man who is both too good for me, yet just the right man I need in my life.  I never thought I would become a mother, but I did.  The Red Room might call motherhood a weakness, but let me ask you something.”  In a flash of movement, a scalpel appears in her hand and she jams it into Dorian’s hand.  He howls in pain. 

She must have snuck that scalpel out of the infirmary. 

“Do you think I’m weak, or do you think it’s possible being a mother has made me more dangerous?” asks Natasha.  She sounds fierce, but Steve can hear the emotion in her voice.  “Now I’m going to ask you about Brock Rumlow and you are going to answer me.  Do I make myself clear?”

“Yes, yes, yes!” cries Dorian.  Is Steve starting to feel bad for him?

Natasha removes the scalpel and walks to the other side of the table so that her back is to Steve.  “Why did Rumlow want my husband dead?”  When Dorian doesn’t answer immediately, Natasha raises her scalpel.  It’s not a threatening gesture per se, but the message is clear.  “Focus, Dorian.”

“Rumlow hates Captain Rogers!” screams Dorian, cupping his bleeding hand.  Steve rubs his eyes wearily.  Dorian is telling Natasha was he already told him.  

“Do better.”

Dorian is sobbing.  “I swear all Rumlow does half the time is talk about Captain Rogers!  He hates him for what happened during the collapse of S.H.I.E.L.D.!  He keeps talking about wanting to ‘drop a building on Rogers’s face’.  He wants him dead!”

“So why couldn’t Rumlow assassinate him himself?” asks Natasha.  Steve thinks that’s a very good question. 

“I…killing him would have been my initiation into Rumlow’s crew!” replies Dorian with a shout.  “I was going to prove to Rumlow that I could kill a high-valued target!”

Okay, Steve wasn't expecting that.  

“So he sends a _boy_ to do a man’s work,” Natasha sums up.  She chuckles mirthlessly.  “Oh, sweetie, do you really think someone like Rumlow would send someone else to settle his vendettas?” she leaves the question hang for a moment or two.  “It sounds to me that he had no interest in you.  So he sent you on a fool’s errand.  I have to admit, you came very close, but consider this:  if you _had_ succeeded in assassinating my husband, what then?  You go report to Rumlow somewhere and be congratulated?  I’ve worked with Rumlow.  I know how he thinks and how he operates.  He is not a people person.  And he does not like it when people steal his thunder.  He would have lost his temper and shot you in the head.  Now that you’ve been compromised, I believe he still would shoot you in the head.

"Where is he now?" 

"I don't know, I swear," pleads Dorian.  "He never stays in one place for long.  He is the one who finds me."  

"So you're a failed prospect  _and_ you're completely useless?" 

Dorian stays silent.  It’s obvious the kid has no argument to offer. 

Natasha lets the silence build.  This is one of her favorite games, letting the silence take over and seeing how long it takes for people to crack.  All she has to do is look them in the eye.  She can be like a statue, blinking very little, making no sound. 

This kid isn’t very strong.  “Are you going to kill me?” he asks eventually. 

Natasha doesn’t answer immediately.  After what feels like several minutes, she walks over to him and tantalizingly traces the kid’s skin with the scalpel.  Dorian squeezes his eyes shut, waiting for the worst.  She leans in close to his ear again. 

“I’m not going to kill you,” she says softly.  “My son and my marriage officially don’t exist.  If we turned you in to the usual authorities, we would have to reveal my son’s existence.  I’m not going to let that happen.  I have an old friend.  His name is Frank Castle. You might know him as the Punisher.  He owes me a favor.  He’s anxious to meet you.  I think you should get a chance to properly introduce yourself,  to say hi when he comes.  I’d love to kill you.  I’d love to make you suffer for as many days as I had to wait to hold my son, but I’m feeling merciful.”  She rises to her full height.  “I don’t speak for Frank Castle, so I can’t say the same for him.  You’ll probably just disappear, never to be seen or heard from again.  Goodbye, Dorian.”

Dorian’s eyes widen out of his skull.  “Wait, what?  No, stop!”  But Natasha is already heading towards the door.  It unlocks and she closes the door behind him without looking back.  She walks by Steve and slips her arm around his.

“Let’s go back to our son,” she suggests. 

Steve walks away with her, leaving Dorian alone with his screams. 

      


	8. Chapter Seven

It feels like Steve was asleep for less than five minutes before he wakes up again.  He loves being a father, but he had no idea how _exhausting_ it can be.  His son has become the most important this in his life, next to his wife.  Being a father, a husband, and a caregiver has given his life meaning outside of the persona that is Captain America.

It’s just incredibly exhausting even for a guy with his metabolism.  Five days have passed since Natasha was discharged from the hospital.  At the behest of everyone, Steve agreed to take a full leave to focus on his baby.  The child doesn’t really do much.  He just eats, sleeps, and cries.  Natasha managed to figure out a way to breastfeed without hurting herself, but she will definitely not miss the bandages once they come off.

Watching his wife breastfeed their child, Steve couldn’t help thinking about the fact that he put his mouth on those breasts, but for a very different reason.  He kept those thoughts to himself. 

Seeing Natasha with James is a really beautiful sight for Steve.  With James, she’s not the cold-blooded Black Widow, or the snarky women that he fell in love with.  She’s something different, yet profoundly beautiful.  When she’s holding James, or if they are just with him together, she seems to glow.  Her eyes sparkle with the intensity of emeralds and when she speaks there isn’t a single snarky note in her voice. 

When they are in their son’s nursery, their happiness soars. 

Funnily enough, Steve ended up being the one more comfortable with changing James’ diapers than Natasha.  He couldn’t help thinking about what Nick Fury once said to him about her being comfortable with everything.  It would seem that cleaning up after her baby would be something that she is _uncomfortable_ with. 

She keeps saying that she hopes to overcome it.  Steve jokingly promised her a medal if she manages to change James’ diaper successfully. 

It was when they went to bed that things started to get very stressful.  Much to their mutual gratitude, James isn’t a very colicky baby…so far.  Natasha joked that it seems he is already starting to develop stealth skills.  Steve worries about James not crying very much.  One of the things that he read about while researching proper infant care was SIDS.  For weeks he was afraid of the possibility of sudden infant deaths.

Luckily, he didn’t share that fear with Natasha.  He was already stressing out about James’ impending arrival enough.  They both were.  They took turns having to calm the other down whenever something else caused them to worry about their baby. 

James has cried.  So far, he and Natasha haven’t had a good night’s sleep.  On average, the two of them have probably only slept for twelve hours in the last five days.  That’s Natasha’s estimate, anyway.

Neither of them wanted caffeine in their son’s diet, so Natasha hasn’t been relying on coffee to stay awake through the day.  When talking to Clint and Laura, they have told them that they didn’t get a good night’s sleep for weeks, even a few months after Lila, Cooper, and now Nathaniel were born.

“It’s all a part of the parenting process,” Laura told them sagely. 

So far this week, every time James has woken them up, they both got up to try and calm down their child.  He’s such a beautiful child.  Despite the fact that he is robbing his parents of much-needed sleep, Steve can’t help being enraptured by the rise and fall of his son’s chest as he breathes. 

Fatherhood is an unbelievable blessing.  It would seem that he has already influenced his son somewhat.  Natasha quickly gave up on trying singing James back to sleep with her Russian lullabies.  To be fair, the lullabies that Steve’s mother used to sing to him wouldn’t work either.  They quickly found out that the only song that James would fall asleep to is the song that Steve sang to him while he was being incubated. 

Natasha joked that James is barely a few weeks old and he is already a Phil Collins fan.  Together, they sang “You’ll Be in My Heart” to their son.  Maybe, at some point, they will be able to graduate to storytelling.  Among other things, they will definitely be reading _Harry Potter_ to their son.

They will be getting up to calm their son for a while.

However, tonight it wasn’t James who woke up Steve.  It was Natasha.  It wasn’t her screams that woke him up; it was her thrashing.  He was spooning her and now she is thrashing about, muttering all kinds of things in what sounds like Russian.  She doesn’t really talk in her sleep, so whatever words she is trying to say aren’t very clear.

Her fists narrowly avoid his face.  He would forgive her for her nightmare, but he knows she would feel awful about it in the morning.  It takes a moment, but he manages to grab her wrists and he is soon over her, trying to pin her down. 

“Natasha, wake up,” Steve says over her tearful screams.  “Nat, please it’s your Steve.”  He has her pinned to the bed, but she continues to squirm beneath him.  He repeats his plea for her to wake up over and over again. 

Eventually, her eyes open.  In the lackluster light, he can see the wildness in her eyes.  “Steve?” she asks.

Steve smiles down at her.  Tears begin to spill out of her eyes and he rolls off of her.  She wraps her arms around him as she sobs.  “Shh, my love,” Steve soothes.  “It was just a dream.”

Natasha continues to sob into his shoulder, her grip on him tightening.  “I had a dream somebody shot our little boy.  I relived getting shot all over again.  I watched _you_ get shot.  It all happened so fast.”

Steve doesn’t know what to say to all of that.  So, he just holds his wife close to him.  “It was just a dream, baby,” he repeats.  However, the thought of him losing his family like that scares him also.  It scares him to death.  He’s brave enough to shield the blast of a grenade with his body, but the thought of losing his family just paralyzes him. 

“I know I’m the one who got shot, but I can’t lose you Steve,” Natasha sobs.  “I can’t lose our James.  I’ve waited too long to have this family and now I can barely sleep.” 

In retrospect, Steve wonders what her instructors from the Red Room would think of this new vulnerability.  She was trained to have no vulnerabilities and now she is not just a wife, but also a mother.  They might consider it a weakness, a hindrance keeping her from her true potential.  Ask him, he believes that it makes her more lethal.  He would hate to see the things that Natasha would do to protect her family. 

But that also comes with the fear of losing her family. 

Steve pushes her away from him.  “Look at me.”

With effort, Natasha manages to meet his gaze. 

“I love you, Natasha,” he swears from the bottom of his heart.  “I love you with all my heart and, if I can help it, nothing bad will happen to our son.” 

Natasha doesn’t answer him immediately as she reaches out and strokes his hair.  “I love you too, Steve.”

He smiles and kisses her forehead.  “We might have a harder time keeping each other from having bad dreams, but the least we can do is remind each other how much we love each other.  Don’t you think?”

Natasha lets out a wry chuckle.  Then she moves over him, covering his body with her much smaller one. 

“Baby, you’re hurt,” Steve reminds her weakly, but Natasha silences him with a finger to his lips.  He doesn’t even say anything about how her hair is tickling his face. 

“Bandages can’t stop me from enjoying my star-spangled man with a plan,” teases Natasha as she lowers her head to meet his lips.  She’s wearing nothing but very revealing nightgown. 

“You’re going to regret that, you Commie,” Steve teases back between their kisses. 

Natasha captures his lower lip between her teeth, hard.  She bites down hard enough almost to draw blood.  “You were trapped under ice during the Cold War; you don’t get to call me ‘Commie’.”

Steve chuckled into her mouth.  “You’re still my favorite Commie, Natalia Rogers.”

She groans pleasurably.  “I love it when you call me that.”  Her lips slam down on his and he tangles his hands in her hair.  He’s careful not to hurt her, but she doesn’t seem to care all that much about gentle.  Every time he hears a whimper, he doesn’t know if it’s from pain or pleasure.  He feels wetness from her cheeks and he wants to tell her not to cry.  But he can’t stop kissing her. 

He loves the feel of her lips all over him.  He loves the feel of his lips all over her.  How he wants to lose control and be wild with her.  Thanks to her pregnancy, he hasn’t made love to her since that fateful night that Ultron made his dramatic debut. 

He feels her hand ghost down the length of his body.   An excited hiss breath escapes his lips as her hand slips into his pajama bottoms.  A shaky moan escapes his lips as she palms his erection in her delicate, yet deadly hand.

“Is the Black Widow going to kill me?” he teases.

Natasha purrs as her body starts to slip down his body.  “If I kill you, who I am going to torture whenever I want?”

Steve’s eyes roll back into his head as her head becomes level with the bulge in his pajama bottoms.  She plants a lingering, sucking kiss to his covered erection and he moans helplessly.  Then her hands grasp the waistband of his pajama bottoms and underwear.

Then the baby monitor goes off.  Steve cranes his neck and looks down at his wife.  She meets his gaze. 

“James,” they both say together.  Natasha rolls off of him and Steve helps her up off the bed.  He then helps her into her night robe. 

“I guess James is telling us we shouldn’t be engaging in non-procreative sex,” Natasha quips as they walk through their dark apartment to James’ room.  “I guess no more blowjobs for you, hubby.”

Steve tries not to let his gaze wander downward towards his softening erection.  He tries to quip back.  “Fine, then I’ll never put my tongue on you again, but how long do you think that we can go without foreplay?” he asks reasonably.  A smug smile finds its way onto his lips.  “You know that you can’t keep your hands off of me for too long.”

“Sure I can,” argues Natasha.  “I didn’t even give you a hand-job while I was pregnant with James.”

“The operative part of that sentence being that you were pregnant,” Steve reminds her.  She stubs his toe.  “Oh, be careful, lady.  Or will end up beating our little boy to the timeout chair.”

“We’re doing timeout chairs?” asks Natasha as they reach their son’s room.

“Well, my mother never spanked me; she was a little too progressive for physical punishment,” explains Steve.  “But she did put soap in my mouth.”

“What a naughty boy, Steve.”  He kisses her forehead.  It also warms his heart that he can talk about his mother with her.  She might not have similar stories to share, given her more violent childhood, but he knows that hearing about his makes her happy. 

Their humor disappears as they approach their son’s crib.  Natasha detaches herself from Steve and closes the distance to their son.  He sees her wince as she bends down to pick up their son.  James almost immediately stops crying as soon as he’s in his mother’s arms. 

“ _Did you have a nightmare, my boy_?” coos Natasha in Russian.  “ _Well, I’ll tell you, I had a bad dream too.  Your father was the one who saved me from that bad dream._ ”

Soon she has their boy sleeping peacefully in her arms.  Steve can sing to their boy, but Natasha?  She can calm their boy just by speaking to him.

She looks up from their son and meets his eyes.  “We’re not going to get much sleep for a while, my love.  I don’t know about you, but if it means comforting our little boy, I think it’s pretty damn worth it.”

Steve shushes her.  “Watch your mouth, or you’ll corrupt our son.”

Natasha blinks at him slowly.  “You’re Captain America, America’s golden boy, I’m the Black Widow; our son is _very_ corrupt.”  She looks down at their son.  “Aren’t you, James?  Yes, you are our corrupted, special boy.”

Steve smiles as he goes to stand behind his wife.  She cranes her neck to meet his lips for a kiss before they both return their gazes to their son.  He keeps it too himself, but the more he stands with his family, the angrier he grows.  It he was like Bruce, he would be turning into the Hulk right about now.

He came so close to losing this.  He waited longer than any man should to have this.  They might have caught the shooter, but not the man who loaded the gun. 

Steve is going to find Rumlow.  And he is going to kill him.  He’s going to make his former S.H.I.E.L.D. colleague feel what he went through during those days his son was incubated and his wife was in a coma.   

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jimmy interrupted Mommy and Daddy's sexy time. Bad boy. 
> 
> Inevitably, this story is leading up to a confrontation with Rumlow. As for whether it's a replacement for the opening action scene from Civil War, or a completely separate occasion...you'll just have to read and find out. :P
> 
> I'm sorry if I seem to be taking a while updating my stories. I'm not dealing with a case of writer's block, but I am worried that I'm losing the energy to write. Recent aptitude tests and work have pretty much left my brain fried on the weekends. I hope that I can overcome it. Still, I will update when I can. 
> 
> Thank you for reading and please review.


	9. Chapter Eight

_“Steve Rogers, where the hell are you?”_ demands Natasha.  _“You get your butt back home_ now _!”_   Her eyes are ablaze with fury on the holographic monitor on the console.  

Steve smiles at her restraint from using foul language.  He wonders which of them will scold their son when he starts experimenting bad words. 

All the other messages say something similar.  A few messages from Sam all say that Natasha is going crazy with worry.  She might be the Black Widow, but she still worries about her loved ones. 

A message from Wanda says that Natasha threw a fifty-pound dumbbell at Tony just for trying to calm her down.  It landed in his testicles.  Knowing Tony, he probably said something crass, or just simply made a poor attempt at being comforting.  Tony, at heart, is a great person and friend, but he does struggle with interpersonal relationships.

Plus, Natasha is clearly inconsolable and that makes her dangerous.

No one knows where Steve is.  He made sure of that by leaving his phone at home.  They might know which Quinjet he took, but he activated the aircraft’s stealth mode.  They can’t track him in stealth.

This is a personal mission; no one else needs to be there with him. 

Over the past couple of days, Steve had spent hours going over everything he could for the whereabouts of Rumlow.  Even Tony’s artificial intelligence, F.R.I.D.A.Y. couldn’t seem to find him very fast.  Rumlow is a master spy; he knows how to hide from even the most advanced methods.  If Steve couldn’t find the man, he could try to track him down based on terrorist attacks. 

The last official record of Rumlow was his escape from the hospital.  Following that event, there were a number of police station robberies in a number of towns over the states surrounding Washington, D.C.  Similar police station robberies occurred in Canada, then England, then a number of places in Europe, East Asia, and finally Nigeria.  All of them had reports of a man with serious burns wearing a skull-like mask.  There have also been a string of deaths of quite a few former S.H.I.E.L.D. employees. 

Steve knew some of them.  The only thing that they all shared in common was the fact that they were directly involved with Rumlow.  

Lately, HYDRA has been dealt with by the peculiarly resurrected Coulson and his S.H.I.E.L.D. agency.  Since it doesn’t officially exist anymore, the agency’s resources are not as vast as they once were.  HYDRA used to be a thorn in Steve’s side.  That was mostly back in the Second World War.  Now he leaves that to Coulson and his capable agents. 

He and Natasha haven’t really crossed paths with them, but Steve has met Melinda May on a few occasions.  She’s a strong woman.  One of the occasions in which they met was actually in the gym.  He watched Agent May and Natasha spar with each other.  They fought each other to a draw. 

Between S.H.I.E.L.D. and HYDRA, HYDRA seems to be much less unified.  Steve searched through anything that could be considered HYDRA activity.  Based on what he found, it looked like Rumlow wasn’t really trying to recreate HYDRA, but more just wreak havoc wherever he could.

Eventually, Steve decided since Rumlow clearly wanted him dead, he should stop trying to look for the man.  Steve could get Rumlow to come to him. The best way for that to work, however, would be for him to do it alone.  So he set towards searching for a pattern in all things related to Crossbones.  It led him to believe that Rumlow’s next exploit would likely take place at an arms deal outside of Tel Aviv. 

That’s where Steve is heading now.  He had hoped he would visit Israel on nicer circumstances.  Touring the Holy Land was on his and Natasha’s bucket list.  He never considered going there on a personal mission.   

He didn’t get a chance to have a one-on-one chat with Dr. Zola after the “death” of Bucky.  He was too busy failing to drown his sorrows with a bottle of French liquor.  Would it have made him feel better if he could get drunk?  If either Natasha or James died, he doesn’t know what he would have done.  Thor didn’t leave any of his Asgardian ale behind, so there would have been no chance of his having an opportunity to get drunk.  He still would have drunk all of Natasha’s vodka. 

All he would have gotten out of that would have been frequent trips to the bathroom.

His family is alive.  A part of his brain is telling him that he _should_ be home right now.  He should be enjoying the plights of early parenthood with his wife.  He should be rolling his eyes over Tony teasing Natasha for the umpteenth time for being a mother. 

Many have agreed that her being a mother has made her considerably more dangerous.  It has also given both him and her something to lose.  Perhaps it was safer when they had nothing to lose, but James and their marriage aren’t just things to lose.  They are things to _fight for_. 

The fact that the person behind the attack on his family was a former colleague of Steve and Natasha’s just makes things worse.  If Rumlow actually had been the one who pulled the trigger…no one would have been able to restrain Steve.  Also, he might never have been caught.  Rumlow is too smart to pull of something like that and not have a getaway plan. 

One thing that truly scares Steve is that once or twice he has found himself wishing that Rumlow had a significant other of his own, or even a child.  He wishes that Rumlow has somebody in his life that he could hurt.  Maybe it would truly give Rumlow an exact idea of how he feels.    

That scares Steve.  He is not that kind of person.  Sure, being some sort publicized as some sort of golden boy is really annoying, but one thing they do get right is his moral compass.  It might be that moral compass that made him capable of lifting Thor’s hammer during that party when everyone was trying to lift that hammer.  It still brings a smile to his lips when he thinks of Thor’s stunned reaction. 

Steve assured the god that he could keep his hammer.  It wasn’t really his style.  They practically shared that hammer during the battle with Ultron and his robots similarly to how Steve shared his shield with Natasha. 

The more he thinks about how well he works with his teammates, the most he realizes that this is probably a suicide mission.  He should have backup, but he was just too angry, too driven. 

But it’s too late to turn back now.  He reaches Israeli airspace.  Using the aircraft’s code, he requests permission to enter the airspace.  The permission is granted.  Vaguely, he wonders if just by doing that he made it possible for the Avengers to find him. 

He doesn’t care anymore.  As the Israeli coast comes into view, he is directed towards a private airstrip outside of Tel Aviv.  He also places emphasis on his presence in the city being as discreet as possible.  He’s not even wearing his uniform and his shield is in a case.  His time with S.H.I.E.L.D. and Natasha had taught him a thing or two about hiding in plain sight. 

As soon as he lands the Quinjet, he makes his way into the city.  Tel Aviv is one of the largest cities in Israel, but he has an idea of exactly where Rumlow might be.  He’s a mercenary these days.  From what Steve could gather there was something that Rumlow was getting ready to steal from a research center in the Kiryat Atidim district.  So that is where he goes.

He manages to get himself a rental car and he drives through the city.  This isn’t the biggest city he has been to, but the density of it makes it seem a lot bigger.  It feels like forever before he manages to get to the Kiryat Atidim district.  When he does, he finds an alley and abandons the car.  He changes into his uniform and unpacks his shield.  Being discreet is going to be harder now. 

It’s nighttime, so that makes things a little easier.  He finds the building where Rumlow is supposed to make his move.  After that, he goes up to the rooftop of another building to give himself a vantage point.  He studies the area.  There’s nowhere for Rumlow to really hide.  Maybe he has abandoned his sense of discretion from when he was on the S.T.R.I.K.E. team with Steve. 

If any of the things that Crossbones had been linked to are anything to go by, he really doesn’t care about making a mess.

As Steve studies the area, he’s able to see a steady stream of people coming in and out of the building.  This is a busy city; sometimes it seems difficult to really see any real pattern.  That’s exactly what Steve is looking for.  He’s an artist.  He can spend long periods of time just studying a scene anywhere with or without paint and canvas. 

In a city, if you study it long enough, there can be patterns.  Study individual people and you can find patterns in their routines.  Steve doesn’t have much time in Tel Aviv, so he’s trying to find something weird. 

Eventually, he does.  He sees a man observing the building.  This man is smart though.  He’s not standing in the same spot for long periods of time.  In fact, it’s not just him.  Soon, another man comes to replace him.  They try to make it inconspicuous, doing other things, posing as sightseers or even as people who work in the district, but Steve can see the pattern.             

Soon, Steve decides to make his move.  Quietly, he abandons his vantage point and begins to follow the man.  To save himself the possibility of losing the man, Steve jumps off the roof, he uses his shield and a dumpster to soften his landing.  It’s not a very tall building, so the impact doesn’t send a big shockwave up his arm. 

Now that he is on the ground, he starts to follow the man.  He leads Steve out of the district into a more residential one. 

He is careful to make sure that he is unseen.  This isn’t New York City.  It must be easier to find parts of Tel Aviv that actually die down when the sun goes down.  When Steve needs to, he can basically disappear even with the conspicuous shield of his. 

The man leads him through the district, eventually walking towards what looks like an abandoned building.  Obviously, it isn’t.  As the man approaches it, Steve hangs back to see what happens.  The man walks through a fence and towards a large set of doors.  When he reaches a certain distance, the doors open and a few men step out with guns.  Another man steps out. 

Steve knows exactly who it is.  Skull-like mask, large gauntlets on his arms and reinforced Kevlar, is Crossbones himself.  He can’t hear them talking, but it sounds like the man that Steve followed is explaining the situation.  It sounds like they are making their move soon.  With that in mind, once they head back inside, Steve circles the building.  Before long, he finds a quiet way to enter the building. 

He shimmies up a drainpipe and crawls in through a broken window.  He lands as softly as he can.  Now in the building, he finds himself right where the vehicles are.  They can’t make their move if they can’t get anywhere.  There’s a lot of machinery noise.  Steve will be able to sabotage these vehicles without making himself noticed right away. 

Using his shield, he slashes the tires on all the trucks one by one.  Once that is done, he finds somewhere to hide just as Rumlow and his men start entering the area. 

“Hey, what the hell happened?” demands Rumlow. 

From Steve’s hiding spot on a catwalk towards the ceiling, he smiles as Rumlow starts questioning his men.  During the commotion, he takes an opportunity to get rid of the lights.  He throws his shield and the hanging lights get busted one by one before the shield ricochets back to him.  The place in dark now, so Steve puts on a pair of glasses that offer night vision. 

He likes that little device that Tony offered the each of the Avengers. 

The destroyed lights stop all the arguing down below. 

“Looks we’re not alone, boys,” says Rumlow.  “Spread out!” he enjoins.  Even as he speaks, his men are pulling out flashlights and start heading in different directions. 

Steve takes the opportunity to pick them off.  Starting with the closest one, he drops down and lands on the man’s shoulders.  Once the man is down, Steve snaps his neck before he can make a sound.  He’s done this before, he can do it again.  

Stealthily, he picks off each man.  He stays low, using the crates, barrels, and shelves stacked with guns to his advantage.  One by one, he either incapacitates or quietly kills each man.  One man tries to reach up and hit an alarm, but Steve throws his knife at his hand.  The man lets out a scream before he is subdued.

“Now what was that?” asks Rumlow’s drawling voice.  “Sounds like our visitor knows a thing or two about being sneaky.  “Rogers, is that you?”  Without warning, Rumlow starts firing a weapon in the direction of the scream a minute ago.  Steve dives for cover before the first shot is even fired. 

“I’ve gotta say, it’s good to see you,” continues Rumlow.  “Things have changed a lot since HYDRA’s collapse.  Things sure have changed a lot for you too, haven’t they?  Married _and_ you have a kid?  You just never stop getting lucky, do you?”

Steve’s nostrils flare as he creeps through the narrows paths made by all the junk that Rumlow seems to have accumulated. 

“I can’t say I’m all that surprised you hooked up with Romanoff,” continues Rumlow.  “What _does_ surprise me is that you two weren’t even hooking up at S.H.I.E.L.D.  Everyone could see you two going at each other.  I never thought that Romanoff would ever spread her legs for a guy without planning on killing him.” 

Steve can’t take it anymore.  He gets out of his hiding spot and finds himself right behind Rumlow.  “You talk too much.”  And he throws his shield at him. 

The shield lands square in Rumlow’s back before it returns to Steve.  The force of the blow knocks the wind out of Rumlow, but it doesn’t send him to the ground.  He turns around and faces Steve. 

“There you are, you son-of-a-bitch,” he hisses.  He activates his gauntlets and charges at Steve.  Steve doesn’t have time to react before Rumlow delivers a blow to his chest.  The force of it sends him flying into a shelf of weapons.  He brings his shield up to block Rumlow’s next blow.  He then delivers a blow of his own.  It gives him a window to get back on his feet. 

“A little prospect of yours tried to kill my family,” he growls.  “I just want you to know, this _is_ personal.”

Rumlow holds his arms out wide.  “Come and get me, Rogers.”

Steve charges with a yell and the two of them engage ferociously. As they fight, the more Steve sees himself using his hands more than his shield.  There’s little form to his fighting.  He just wants to hurt Rumlow.

Rumlow is not an enhanced person, but those gauntlets of his have given him a competitive edge over Steve, more so than he did when they worked together.  At one point, a gauntlet grazes Steve’s face before he can bring his shield up to block it.  He counters with a blow to Rumlow’s face.  The force of his fist knocks Rumlow’s mask off. 

Through the night vision, Steve can see the disfigurement left behind from Rumlow’s injuries. 

“I think I look pretty good all things considered,” says Rumlow, registering Steve’s gaze.  He then drives a fist into Steve’s gut.  This time, it sends him through a weak bit of drywall.

Stars dance on the edge of Steve’s vision as he tries to recollect himself.  Before he can, however, he feels the weight of Rumlow on him, pinning him down.  Then something sharp is driven through his shoulder.  A scream escapes Steve’s lips as he sees a blade from one of Rumlow’s gauntlets sticking out of his shoulder. 

“This is embarrassing, Rogers,” taunts Rumlow.  “Maybe your years are finally catching up to you, but this is not the top of your game.  The Rogers I remember is a hell of a lot better than you.”  He laughs.  “Well, it looks like we’re about to put the _widow_ in ‘Black Widow’.”  A blade comes out his other gauntlet and he raises his arm for a punch towards Steve’s face. 

Steve’s eyes widen and images of his son, of his life before and after World War Two, of meeting his Natasha flash through his mind.  A bright light flashes through his vision. 

And he’s not dead.  Shouldn’t he be dead?  He realizes that his eyes are squeezed shut and he opens them.  Rumlow is no longer on top of him.  The blade from his shoulder is gone, leaving a gaping hole that is quickly turning the blue of his uniform crimson with his own blood.  That flash of light wasn’t his life ending.  That was…

“Tony?” Steve sputters.  Surely enough, Iron Man enters his vision, slowly descending to the ground. 

“Did you really think there was no way for us to track you, Cap?” quips the billionaire. Rhodey in his War Machine suit appears right next to him.  “Come on, let’s get you up.”  Tony and Rhodey stoop down to grab his arms.  Together, they haul Steve to his feet. 

“You guys shouldn’t have come,” Steve says stubbornly. 

“Right and Romanoff would have killed us both for having to bring you back in a box,” Tony fires back.

“He’s right, Steve,” adds Rhodey.  “Your wife and kid need you.”

Their conversation is interrupted by someone laughing.  “Rogers, it sure looks like you have plenty of backup.  It’s a pleasure, Iron Man.”

“I wish I could say the same,” Tony says.  Then he raises his hand and fires another blast at Rumlow.  “Now, Cap, let’s get you home before your wife kills us all.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Action scenes are not my strong suit, but I hope I did okay.


	10. Chapter Nine

Steve doesn’t say much on their way back to the compound.  Once they are in the air on the Quinjet, Tony put the aircraft on autopilot.  After that, he and Rhodey went about fixing Steve up.  Rhodey has more experience with fixing up wounds than Tony does. 

Steve hears Tony berating him for going after Rumlow half-cocked, but he doesn’t really pay attention.  He winces every so often as Rhodey does his best to dress the wound in his shoulder with the materials on hand.  The Quinjet has a fully stocked first aid kit, but it’s not a hospital.  The blade from Rumlow’s gauntlet went straight through Steve’s shoulder.  It was difficult enough getting his uniform out of the way. 

Once they did, the blood from his wound flowed more freely.  His whole shoulder and half of his arm and torso became rustic with dried and wet blood.  According to Tony’s assessment—actually _F.R.I.D.A.Y.’s_ assessment—was that the blade barely missed any of his arteries.  Even Steve can’t survive a severed artery for very long. 

Even through the pain of Rhodey’s ministrations, all Steve can think about is that Rumlow is still out there.  Rumlow, that bastard, must be having real laugh right about now.  Steve failed to make him pay for almost taking his family away from him.  He was too busy wanting to hurt Rumlow. He should have just ended it.  He knows Rumlow. Rumlow was one of the best when it came to resistance to interrogation.  Steve could knock all of Rumlow’s teeth out and Rumlow would be _enjoying_ himself.

Steve wasn’t at the top of his game, as Tony has been making abundantly clear.  Has he more energy, Steve would tease that the billionaire might actually be concerned for him.  Tony would most definitely just revert to his usual stony self and pretend that he really has no heart. 

Rumlow’s not dead.  No doubt he will take extra measures to disappear.  Now Steve is just scared to death that at any given moment, someone will try to kill his wife or son.  And he has been in the Middle East roughhousing with a terrorist when he should have been at home with them.  He feels awful. 

“Roughhousing,” Steve muses out loud.

Tony stops mid-tirade.  “What?” he and Rhodey say together. 

Steve looks up at his two colleagues.  “I was roughhousing with Rumlow.”

Tony shares a look with Rhodey before rolling his eyes.  “Roughhousing?” he repeats.  “Is that the word you plan to use with the missus?”

Steve smiles ruefully.  “I am a new dad,” he reminds the man.  “It’s probably a word I’m going to be using a lot.”

Tony sighs heavily as he takes a seat on one of the benches.  “You are a new dad, Steve,” he says, sounding calmer.  “That’s why you should be at home, loving up your wife and kid.  Otherwise that kid is just going to grow wondering if he’s even worth his dad’s attention.  He’ll end up having to make a mess of something important to you just to get you to notice him.”

Tony takes off his glasses and rakes a hand through his hair. 

Steve shares a look with Rhodey.  “We’re not talking about me anymore, are we?”

Tony groans.  “Oh, this is an overshare I was hoping to avoid,” he laments.  “History reveres the great Howard Stark, but he couldn’t even notice his son.  You know he missed my graduation from M.I.T.  He was ‘held up with a teleconference with the board of directors from Caltech.’  There I was, a seventeen-year-old kid accepting his college diploma and my dad wasn’t even there to see it.”

Rhodey sighs, going over to sit next to his oldest friend. 

Tony looks Steve straight in the eye.  “Cap, for the love of God, you have a kid.  He should be the center of your life right now.”

“Why do you think I came out here?” asks Steve bitterly.  “I love my son!”

“And you almost made him fatherless,” Tony fires back.  “We’ve already had to deal with your wife!  She started screaming in Russian!”

Steve hides a smile.  As far as Tony is concerned, Natasha is scarier than the Hulk when she starts screaming in Russian.  Sometimes he agrees.  “So what are you telling me, Tony?”

“What I’m telling you is that I wouldn’t blame you if you retired,” the billionaire replies.  “Even Barton has retired.  You have a family now.  The world can manage without Captain America for a while.”

Steve regards his colleague with some sort of newfound respect.  It’s obvious he cares about him being a father and wants him to be the best one he can be.  “You know what, maybe you’re right.”

Tony gapes at him.  “Am I dreaming or did Steve Rogers just agree with me on something?”

Steve and Rhodey laugh. 

“Don’t let it go to your head, Stark,” Steve warns the man, but he’s still laughing. 

“Oh, I think it’s too late for that, Cap,” laughs Rhodey.

What Steve doesn’t do is remind him that he can’t leave a job incomplete.  Yes, he will retire.  He and Natasha have talked about it for months, having looked at homes out in the country.  Even Clint has told them about a neighbor of his who was selling their house. Natasha loves her best friend, but Steve knew that she didn’t necessarily want to live _that_ close to him.  They will figure it out.  

Before that, however, there is something he needs to do.  Rumlow needs to be taken care of.  However, next time he isn’t going to go after that bastard alone.  Next time he will bring help. 

Until then, he is probably just going to have to endure an earful from Natasha followed by more potential sleepless nights calming down James. 

This is going to be a rough few months. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this arc follows up right into Civil War. 
> 
> I'm not sure if I'll be working on my Civil War arc just yet. 
> 
> Like many of you, I'm sure, I'm in mourning.
> 
> I hope you enjoyed this story!


End file.
